You ask any typical student of literary studies about the partition literature. He will certainly give you a fair idea about this genre. Tell a few dates and incidents, and narrate some stories, he may have heard and read. And then you ask about the writers who have written in this domain about which he is familiar. He will reel out the familiar names. Depending on whether the student is from Urdu, English or Kashmiri, if we confine ourselves to South Asia. Khushwant Singh, Bapsi Sidwa, Krishan Chander, Manto, Intizar Husain and a few others who have chronicled this cataclysmic event in the modern south Asian history. All worthy of a serious read, deserving applause, not to mention their preservation for posterity. In literary jargon though, we call it canon, resonating with the intimidating kanoon. A list of established, embedded names, passed on from one generation of students to another, calcifying their names in the syllabus and curriculum, framing unsurprising questions and very often standard, run-of-the-mill kind of answers, and even outstandingly familiar patterns of evaluation, often eclipsing others who have spoken and written on the same subject. As students also, our first brush with partition was perhaps through Train to Pakistan by Khuswant Singh. How a rather sleepy village in the region of Mano Majra is rattled by the chaos and disorder unleashed by the rapidly changing situation. Add a bit of risqué commentary, in true Khushwant style, with the aid of Nooran Baksh,........

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