Manto Study Questions

"Toba Tek Singh"

1. What is the tone of the narration that emerges in the opening paragraphs?  What point of view does this narrator have?

2. How does one of the lunatics define Pakistan?  Does this definition make any sense at all?

3. What “quandary” perplexes many of the inmates?

4. What are the reactions of some of the inmates?  Are their reactions all truly mad?

5. What is the story of Bishan Singh? 

6. The narrator says that people now simply call him Toba Tek Singh.  When does this occur?  Does the narrator ever refer to him that way?

7. Who comes to see Bishan Singh and what do they discuss?  What does this conversation suggest about pre-Partition life?

8. What does the narrator speculate that Bishan Singh wanted to say to the man who thought he was god?

9. What happens during the exchange of lunatics at the Wagah border?
   How does Bishan Singh react?

10. At the end of the story, who or what lies “on a stretch of land that had no name” (19)?

11. Find the real Toba Tek Singh on a map. Does it seem odd that, 2 or 3 years after Partition, no one seems to know which side of the border this area is on?

"Khol Do"

1. Describe the tone of the opening paragraph.

2. What has happened to Sirajuddin's family?

3. What do the young men promise to Sirajuddin?

4. How is young men's encounter with Sakina described?  What do we not learn?

5. We are told that Sakina is alive.  So why the narrator refer "a corpse" on the stretcher?  To her "lifeless" hands?

6. Why does Sakina lower her shalwar?

7. How does her father respond?  The doctor?

8. What do you think is the significance of the story's title?