Tamas Reflective Statement

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Reflective Statement on “Tamas by Bhisham Sahni”

I was happy that our second translated work went into the issue of Indian culture and the parti-tion of the country. I was always more interested in Tamas than any other novel. Tamas gave me insights about how the partition must have taken place. I never was interested in history and that too the partition of India. Tamas was a novel that kept me intrigued till the very end. The sus-pense of what would happen next kept me reading the book.
I chose to do my World Literature Essay on the importance of the minor characters of the novel Tamas and what effect did religion have on those characters. I decided my topic without any hesitation as I thought that the minor characters played a significant roles in the novel and I also …show more content…

Bhisham Sahni (8 August 1915 – 11 July 2003) was a famous writer, actor and playwright.
He is most famous for his work 'Tamas ' which means darkness. The novel is based on the riots of 1947-1948 which he witnessed at Rawalpindi.
Religion controls the minds of the characters due to which the riots occur. The two main religions due to which the partition took place are Hinduism and Islam. Neither of the two groups wanted to settle matters calmly and they keep on blaming each and other for the partition.
I chose the importance of the minor characters and the effect religion had on them in the novel 'Tamas '. The minor characters or the antagonists that I am focusing on are Murad Ali and Shah Nawaz.
Murad Ali is an important minor character; it is he who is the cause of the fight between the Muslims and the Hindus in his town. He started the whole incident by getting a pig killed by Nathu. The killing of the pig was a major incident that led to the partition.
He was a man of his words. “The veterinary surgeon needs a pig for his

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