The Unsafe Asylum: Stories of Partition and Madness

Stories of Partition and Madness

11 October, 2018

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Anirudh Kala

Like Saadat Hasan Manto’s short story “Toba Tek Singh,” Anirudh Kala’s collection of interlinked short stories explores the impact of a decision taken by the governments of India and Pakistan to exchange patients in their mental hospitals after Partition. Kala, a psychiatrist based in Ludhiana, founded the Indo-Pak Punjab Psychiatric Society in 2008, and has based this book on his experience of treating patients from both sides of the border. Through this unconventional vantage point, he seeks to revisit the horrors of Partition.

Speaking Tiger, 250 pages, Rs 350

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