Tobha Tek Singh" (Urdu: ٹوبہ ٹیک سنگھ ALA-LC: Ṭobah Țek Siṉgh IPA: [ʈoːbəh ʈeːk sɪŋɡʱ]) is a short story written by Saadat Hasan Manto and published in 1955. It follows inmates in a Lahore asylum, some of whom are to be transferred to India following the 1947 Partition. The story is considered to be a "powerful satire" on the relationship between India and Pakistan.

The story is set two or three years after the 1947 partition, when the governments of India and Pakistan decided to exchange some Muslim, Sikh and Hindu lunatics, 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, 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 in the no man's land between the two barbed wire fences: "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 Tobha Tek Singh."

In the story, whenever Bishan Singh gets irritated he mutters or shouts a mix of Punjabi, Urdu and English which, though nonsensical, is indirectly pejorative of both India and Pakistan. For instance, "Upar di gur gur di annexe di bedhiyana di moong di daal of di Pakistan and Hindustan of di durr phitey mun", which means: "The inattention of the annexe of the rumbling upstairs of the dal of moong of the Pakistan and India of the go to bloody hell!"

The story has been adapted in film form multiple times by various filmmakers. (Wikipedia)

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- Manpreet Sahota

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