Borderlands

The boundaries between people, places, ideas, and languages can be so complicated and sad. I say this is sad because we, human beings, are the ones who have created such boundaries. These physical and mental borderlines and visions have created violence and displacement. The short film, Partition, is an example of these differences between nations within a nation. The division between India and Pakistan brought about over one million deaths. Muslim people were segregated from the Hindus, being forbidden to even drink from the same water taps. Hindu people didn’t want to touch them. It makes me ill to think of the brutality taken place (and still does to this very day). 

In his short story, Toba Tek Singh, Manto writes about the lunatics in the asylum. The main character, Bishan Singh, is very interesting because him, like the rest of the lunatics, represent real people. They may as well be truly sane for they have done nothing wrong. They are going insane because of the fact they are stuck in an asylum, away from their families and true identity of who they once were and what they once knew. Bishan Singh’s hope in finding Toba Tek Singh never stopped, until he was forced in the other direction. The man who stood on his feet for 15 years finally lay prostate. His hope disappeared because he was being forced to leave. At the end of the story, Manto writes, “There, behind barbed wire, was Hindustan. Here, behind the same kind of wire, was Pakistan. In between, on that piece of ground that had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh.” These borders break up lands. They break up people and ways of thinking. Toba Tek Singh could be in Pakistan; it could be in Hindustan but because of these borderlands, who even knows. Regardless, Singh’s heart was Toba Tek Singh. He didn’t want to know anything else or had any idea of what was going on in regards to the partition. It’s sad because real people like Singh often pay the price.