"Chauthi Koot" means fourth direction.

The story "Chauthi Koot" is a story of the state of mind of a common man in the years after 84.

Chauthi Koot evokes the atmosphere of suspicion, fear and paranoia of the Punjab in 1980s.

Dr. Waryam Singh Sandhu, born on 10th of September 1945 is a famous Indian author of short stories.In the year 2000, he was awarded with the Sahitya Akademi Award for his famous short story collection known as "Chauthi koot".

The author says that I did not make the 'Punjab crisis' the subject of the stories because I wanted to be in the discussion by doing so. The fear and terror of that time was such that it remained in our minds for almost a decade and a half. There was not a single moment when the mind of any Punjabi was free from the burden of this fear. This was not a floating issue of a few days, but a deep-rooted issue that had settled in our souls and kept us gnawing at each and every moment. Such an issue could not be written with the sole purpose of interest or discussion in mind. Especially in the area of Majha where I lived, even speaking a word against the terrorists was like inviting death. In that area which I called the ‘Fourth Koot’ and which had become a forbidden area for other countrymen. Sitting in that village, where the maximum number of people had fallen victim to bullets during this period and where a person could be taken to the next world on the basis of a small lie or truth, such stories could not be written just to be in the discussion! These were just a humble attempt to remove the weight of the Himalayas weighing on one’s mind by scraping it with the tip of a pen.

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