Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh 1956 - A Classic Novel of the 1947 Partition of India

My Posts on Khushwant Singh

I am very glad that I posted on Khushwant Singh before he passed away.  

Much of the political trouble in the world that drives headlines can be traced back to the breakup of the British Empire.  The terrible legacy of English colonialism still curses much of the world.  In 1947 when the Indian Subcontinent was partitioned into two religiously divided countries the resultant chaos unleashed an incredible killing and rapine  frenzy in which Hindus, Muslims, and Sihks killed each other, raped millions of women of different faiths, and committed barbaric crimes on a continent wide scale.  At least a million people died.  Later the partitioning lead to wars and international conflicts (with both sides now armed with nuclear weapons) that prevail today.  Train to Pakistan is a classic treatment of this travesty of colonialism. 

In the small Indian town, located near the border with Pakistan, Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs have lived next door to each other in harmony and friendship for generations.  They are isolated from the news about what is going on elsewhere.  Train to Pakistan begins by spending about a third of the novel letting us see what life is like in the town.  The town has it trouble makers, the police can be brutal and there caste and religious sensitivities and prejuduces but people get along.   The first thing one asks or wonders about a stranger is their religious background.  Singh has no great respect for the followers of any of the religions.  He sees people as much more concerned about clothing and grooming traditions than really living their faith.  I did learn a good bit about the history of Sikhs (Singh is an authority on this) from the novel.  

The biggest thing in the commerce of the town is the trains that pass through and stop at the local station.  I learned some very interesting things about the extreme importance of trains to the economy of India in 1947.  

In a very violent episode a group of thugs (a word with ancient Indian roots) robs and murders the station master.  In a kind of side episode we observe the police chief with a 16 year old prostitute.  Readers of Singh will expect this).  

One terrible day a train pulls in and stops.  Fifty soldiers  detrain.  The villagers are told to bring any wood or oil they have, they will be paid for it.  There are 1000 dead Bodies  on the train that needed to be cremated.  The people are devastated and shocked by this.  From this things get worse and worse.  The violence is just horrific.  

Train to Pakistan is a very powerful work.  Singh has a unique style i really like.  He tells the truth.

Mel u

"The Agnostic" by KHUSHWANT SINGH (1963, seven pages)

KHUSHWANT SINGH (1915, India) might be the world's oldest active writer.  Known for his acerbic wit and for an obsession with the female posterior, you could do a lot worse than start a day with one of his stories.  I have previously posted on two of his works, "Portrait of a Lady" and "The Bottom Pincher", both of which many would see as adults only works and tremendously fun stories.  They would not win the approval of ardent feminists.  "The Agnostic" is a family friendly funny story most anyone would enjoy reading.

As the story opens, a family friend is visiting.  He asserts his agnostic views, in front of the family children which really upsets the mother of the family.  She says you will destroy the faith we try to give our children by hiring Koran teachers for them.   The man tells her you are brain washing them with fairy tales, he says "Your God is like a gas bag".  The ten year old, knowing it will annoy his patents begins saying this.  The father changes the topic.   The friend stays the night.  The next day the family and he go for a walk.  The ten year old throws his ball into a tree.  He tries to dislodge it but it is too far up.  The agnostic says, I will believe in God if he will bring the ball down right now.  Of course a string breeze comes up at once and the ball falls in the agnostic's face.

Ok, simple story but fun to read and made me smile.

Mel u

"The Bottom-Pincher" by Khushwant Singh

"The Bottom-Pincher" by Khushwant Singh (2008, 7 pages)

Short Stories of The Indian Subcontinent

A Permanent Reading Life Project

Khushwant Singh

I am very pleased  that The Reading Life was recently recommended by The Economic Times of India,. the leading financial daily of The Subcontinent.   




The Reading Life Guide to The Indian Short Story


My posts on "Karma" and "Portrait of a Lady"




This is my sixth  post for a  new permanent event on The Reading Life, short stories of the Indian subcontinent.   There is no literary culture with roots older than that of India.   I will always admire Edmund Burke for telling the English that they had no right to govern a region whose culture is much older than theirs.  Many of the geographic boundaries that created these countries were created by the British or are consequences of their misrule.       Some of the writers featured will be internationally famous, such as Salmon Rushdie, Saadat Manto,  and R. K. Narayan but most of the writers I post on will be authors on whom there are no prior book blog posts.    There are numerous books and academic conferences devoted to exploring the colonial experiences of India and Ireland and I will look at these stories partially as post colonial literature.   My main purpose here is just to open myself up to a lot more new to me writers and in this case most will be new to anyone outside of serious literary circles in the region.  Where I can I will provide links to the stories I post on but this will not always be possible.


Khushwant Singh (1915-Hadali, Khushab, British India-now Pakinstan) is one of the best known Indian writers.  .   He was born into a Sikh family and initially pursued a career as an attorney.    He was driven to begin writing in a reflective often acerbic way about life in the Indian subcontinent by his experiences of the 1947 Partition of India.   He was very traumatized when just prior to the Partition of India he encountered a platoon of soldiers of his faith who boasted to him that they had just completely massacred a  peaceful village of Muslims, men, women and children.    He has published over twenty five books  (There is more information on him here.)   He would be the first to admit that the very prim and prudish will find some of this work offensive (in fact I think he would be disappointed if it did not offend them) and he has called himself "The dirty old man of Indian Literature".   The "bottom line" (cannot always help myself) is that he has a big thing for the posteriors of women (and maybe teenage girls) at least his works seem to suggest this.   This is a common perception, not just mine.    (The texts quoted in the rest of the posts can be R-rated so be advised.


How can one not be at least interested in a story that starts out like this:

I am not a bottom-pincher, but I would like to be one. Like some people are granted freedom of a city, I would like to be granted freedom to pinch female citizens' bottoms. Pinching is not the right word. If the bottom is nicely rounded, I would like the freedom to caress it in the cup of my palm. If it is very large or very small, I would like the freedom to run a finger up its crevice. Only if it sags would I want the freedom to take the sagging flesh between my thumb and index finger and tweak it. However, no city has yet conferred such freedom on me.\

The story tellers makes sure we know he is a law abiding citizen with a decent job who is on the governing body of the YMCA.  (I am not sure if this is not a shot at Christians in India.)   Whenever he sees a woman or a girl with an attractive posterior he has to fight the impulse to stroke it by thinking of the great fuss the victim might make.   He tells us how a crowded city like Bombay provides ideal conditions for "bottom-watching".

A crowded city like Bombay provides ideal conditions for bottom-watching. And the garments in which Indian female bottoms are draped are infinitely more varied than anywhere else in the world; saris, gararas, lungis, skirts (Indian style ghaghra as well as the European full-lengths and minis), stretch pants, bell-bottom trousers, churidars—you can encounter all varieties in 15 minutes any time any place........One has to be very careful not to brush against their bosoms or bottoms. Who wants to be very careful?

As he walks the streets he describes beauifully the chaos of Bombay.   One day while on his stroll he witnesses something that shocks him and seemingly sends him into a terrible state of jealousy.   A very affluent looking man is also walking the same area, he gives money to all the beggers and as he walks along he very discretely pinches the bottoms of a few women.  When they turn around to see who did it he is lost in the crowd.   He is shocked that the man is willing to take a risk that he is not and he begins to stalk the man and follow him on his daily walk.  Everyday he gives a young blind beggar woman with an infant a rupee and in doing so he always brushes up against her breasts, an accident of course.   One day the narrator follows the man into the Chamber of Commerce building.   The way he is treated makes it clear he is a person of great import.   He  spots the man getting out of a limo and he tricks the driver into revealing to him the man's name and he calls everyone in the city phone book with that name until he finds the man's house.  One day he sees a sixteen year old girl, at most get out of the same car at the Fire temple and run up to the man shouting "Daddy".   Here is his description of the daughter.  Ponder his idea of how the other man got his obsession with the female bottom

 Very lovely too! Nut-brown hair failing on her shoulders. Healthy open-air type. And a figure right off the walls of some ancient Hindu temple; large bosom bursting out of her blouse, narrow waist and again a bottom—large protuberant and so provocative as if it were cocking the snook at the world and saying "I don't give a fart!"
No wonder our hero had such an obsession with bosoms and bottoms. Constant exposure to such temptation! Constant frustration because of not being allowed to touch them!  

Now he begins to try to interfere in the life of the other man.   He calls his house at a time he knows he will  not be in and when the daughter answers the phone he tells her to tells her to tell her father that "Mr. Bottom-Pincher" has called.   The daughter tells her father and says "Daddy. what an odd name".   The man stops making his daily walks and the narrator feels he has triumphed over this rich and privileged person.   Then in about a month he sees him again but he looks very sad, he gives out money but no pinches, he looks behind him as if he fears he is being followed, no doubt fearing a black mailer.  Then one day the bottom pincher just cannot take it anymore.

One afternoon he was threading his way through the crammed pavement with me trailing a few yards behind him. I saw three women ahead of us examining some merchandise at a stall. Their bottoms presented a tempting variety of sizes and coverings. One was a young girl in blue skin-tight jeans; her buttocks were like two nicely rounded, unripe water melons. Beside her was an older woman in a bright-red sari. She was massive like one big pumpkin. The third in the row was a twelve-year-old Lolita in a white and so mini a skirt that when she bent down it exposed all her thigh and a bit of her bottom as well. I could see Pesi Lalkaka's left arm twitch. The triumvirate of bottoms thus served up proved too powerful a temptation to resist. His hand came out of the pocket and caressed the three in quick succession. By the time the women straightened up and turned around Pesi had gone ahead and I was directly behind the three. The old woman glowered and swore, "Badmash-rascal." Her younger companion hissed, "Mummy, don't create a scene."

The narrator is now determined to teach him a lesson so he calls the man's office and tells the secretary to leave a message saying "Mr Bottom-Pincher has called".  


I will stop telling the story here but the narrator does get punishment in the end and the bottom pincher gets his revenge.


I enjoyed reading this story.   I will not claim it was just because I like the style of Singh, which I do, or I enjoy his satire on the clay feet of the rich, as I did, but as rude as it is somehow the bottom pinching seemed a primal response to the teeming crowds in the streets of Bombay.  As the father of three teenage girls I would want anyone who did this sort of thing to them on the streets put in jail and would have to be restrained from seeking revenge on them.   




This is a very funny story.  


You can read it online HERE.  


Mel u