Fiction pick: ‘Where Toba Tek Singh Goes After the Fire’ by Nirupama Rao

They used to argue about where I belonged. India, Pakistan, maybe somewhere in between. Committees debated, sentries explained, maps changed colours. I kept standing. Standing is safer than choosing.

Now there is no colour left on the maps. Even blood dries up.

The sky cracked open this morning. Not thunder. Thunder has dignity. This was a sudden white glare, like someone had torn a hole in reality and forgotten to stitch it back. Quite a sight.

First one blasts far away. Then another closer. People began whispering that a missile had crossed by mistake. Then another mistake answered it. Mistakes multiplied quickly – much faster than reason ever does.

They called it escalation. I call it dangerous toys acquiring a life of their own.

A young soldier ran past, shouting instructions nobody understood. He kept saying, “Stay calm!” which is always a sign that calm has already packed its bags and left.

I asked him, “Beta, where is Toba Tek Singh now?”

He stopped. His face was the colour of curling, burnt newsprint.

“Uncle,” he said, “do not expect an answer.”

That sounded honest. Honesty is rare during disasters. Usually, people prefer slogans.

The second flash swallowed the horizon. Buildings folded like tired men. Trees looked startled, as if they had trusted humanity too long. Even the stray dogs stopped barking – a remarkable diplomatic achievement.

Someone said Delhi was gone. Someone else said Lahore. Then Karachi. Then Amritsar. Rumours were flying faster than the missiles. In war, truth always travels third class.

I kept standing. Habit, mostly. Also curiosity. When nations finally prove their sanity by destroying themselves, one feels obliged to witness the experiment.

For years, they told us nuclear weapons prevent war. Like keeping a cobra in the cradle prevents crying. The logic always fascinated me.

I remember the Partition days. Same urgency, same speeches, same confidence that everything was under control – until it wasn’t. Humans are consistent if nothing else. We repeat mistakes with admirable discipline.

The air began tasting metallic. People wrapped cloth around their faces. Radios crackled with patriotic announcements even as infrastructure dissolved. It seems dignity must be preserved right up to extinction.

I thought of the old asylum courtyard. India on one side, Pakistan on the other, and a strip of dust nobody claimed. I used to sleep there sometimes. Neutral ground. Peaceful.

Now the dust keeps swirling around me, coming.

Someone wept nearby. Someone prayed. Someone calculated stock market losses – optimism takes many forms. A child asked whether school would be closed tomorrow. When the mango season would come. No one answered. For once, adults had exhausted their supply of confident lies. Innocence has drowned.

The third flash was softer but closer. The kind that makes shadows permanent. I saw a creature staring at me, head of a lion, shape of a man, a blank gaze, like the sun, pitiless. Madness reveals so much.

Silence followed. A heavy, embarrassed silence. As if the earth itself was reconsidering its decision to host us.

I finally sat down. First time in years. Standing suddenly felt unnecessary. Borders, after all, require territory. Territory requires survival.

“So,” I said aloud, “where is Toba Tek Singh now?”

No guard answered. No official. No loudspeaker.

The earth today feels like Hastinapura – alive, yet ashamed to be.

I keep thinking about that ancient riverbank by the Ganga, after Kurukshetra, where they say families gathered to mourn together — no sides, just loss. Perhaps that is where Toba Tek Singh has moved. Not India, not Pakistan. Just the place where grief stops needing nationality.

Funny thing about madness: the truly mad once asked whether both countries might disappear one day. Sensible people laughed. Sensible people built bigger bombs.

Who, then, understood reality better?

The air tastes metallic. The sun rises cautiously now, as if asking permission. Even the wind sounds diplomatic.

I stood up again. Fifteen years in an asylum taught me that standing between things sometimes prevents falling entirely into either.

So if anyone asks me today where Toba Tek Singh is, I will say:

Not erased – relocated.

To that invisible territory where grief equalises everyone. Like the banks of the Ganga after Kurukshetra, where families mourned together regardless of which side they fought on. No borders there, only loss.

If such a place exists – and I think it does – it may be the only durable homeland we have.

Someone told me nations are eternal. I laughed for the first time in years. Mountains are eternal. Rivers, perhaps. Human arrangements are drafts.

Maps change faster than memory.

So if anyone asks me today where I belong, I will answer calmly:

I belong to the place that survives maps.

The place where survivors stand together before drawing new lines.

The place that remembers Kurukshetra, remembers Partition, and maybe – just maybe – will remember this flash of terrible light.

Until then, I will continue standing.

Old habits, you see. Also hope. Fog has settled inside my head again. Comfortable fog. Clarity hurts more.

Better to mutter nonsense.

“Up there gur gur, down here mung dal, whole subcontinent pressure cooker.”

People nod. Nonsense reassures them. It sounds less frightening than policy briefings.

And if you ever find Toba Tek Singh again, do tell me.

I suspect it will not have a border.