Synopsis: Train to India - Memories of Another Bengal

Train to India: Memories of Another Bengal by Maloy Krishna Dhar begins with the laughter and music of East Bengal and ends with the sound of a train chugging its way to India, amid screams, stabs and gunfire.

Ten-year-old Maloy's first encounter with the massacres that saw trains emptying the mutilated bodies of their passengers into bloodied rivers begins on the Dacca-Sylhet Express in 1950.

As he boards the train with his mother, the boy notices a tick mark in white chalk on the side of the carriage, a sign that worries him. The train enters the Anderson Bridge, and a blob of fresh blood hits Maloy’s face.

After escaping with his life, Maloy makes several other train journeys from East Pakistan - can he ever get off the train?

Read excerpts from 'Train to India'

A region bound by language and culture is split as political ambition pits the chakra against the crescent. Through near-famine situations and cruel suppression of rights, acts of humaneness shine through.

The untold story of the Eastern Exodus unfolds through debates on Krishna and Allah, a little girl's determination in the face of police interrogation, a father's advice to his sons as he leaves for a revolutionary war and many more moving vignettes.

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