Details: Toba Tek Singh – Play
Venue: Akshara Theatre, Baba Kharag Singh Marg
The story is set two or three years after the 1947 Partition, when the governments of India and Pakistan decided to exchange their Muslim, Sikh and Hindu, and revolves around Bishan Singh, a Sikh inmate of an asylum in Lahore, who is from the town of Toba Tek Singh. As part of the exchange of Bishan Singh is sent under police escort to India, but upon being told that his hometown Toba Tek Singh is in Pakistan, he refuses to go.
The story ends with Bishan lying down between barbed wire: ‘There, behind barbed wire, was Hindustan. Here, behind the same kind of barbed wire, was Pakistan. In between, on that piece of ground that had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh.’
The play was very long ( or at least it seemed very long because of a straightforward story taking forever to reach the climax). Dialogues were repetitive and jarring. Same character performing same lines and actions again and again. As a result for most part of the play nothing happened. There is no movement in the story. Plays based on partition doesn’t seem very relevant in current times. Even If I have to watch a play based on partition I’d recommend “Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya Oh Jamiya Hi nai” any day. Maybe because “Jis Lahore….” is basically about human relationships and theme of partition is only in the background.
Coming back to “Toba Tek Singh”, the play had some good performances but that’s about it. It need serious editing. More emphasis on Climax when the prisoners are being sent to the other side of the border and their reaction to it. Rather than spending 80% of the time in the “crazy man” act of each and every prisoner in the asylum.
A lot of Saadat Hassan Manto’s works revolve around the traumas of partition. “Toba Tek Singh” is a statement story in this area. However, this play version, possibly to evoke laughter, dwelt too much on the comic and hence the integrity of the work was compromised / lost 🙁
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