Published Paper Details:

Abstract- The relationship between violence and memory in Saadat Hasan Manto's Partition tales Thanda Gosht and Khol Do is examined in this essay. Both tales illustrate how the pain of Partition persists as an embodied memory and psychological scar long after the violence has ended. Ishwar Singh's discovery of the murdered girl and his subsequent impotence in Thanda Gosht reveal how cruelty leaves a lasting memory that undermines connection and identity. In contrast, Sakina's dehumanized state, where her robotic answer to the command "open it," attests to the erasure of agency under the weight of repeated assaults, is how Khol Do foregrounds the collective pain of displacement and sexual abuse. Together, these stories illustrate Manto's unflinching portrayal of Partition as not merely a historical rupture but a continuing site of memory, where survivors and victims' alike embody the afterlife of violence. Drawing on trauma theory, particularly Cathy Caruth's notion of trauma as a belated and intrusive experience, this paper argues that Manto situates Partition within a framework of unending remembrance, making visible the inescapable entanglement of violence, memory, and identity.