Repeated mention of bathing in Toba Tek Singh

Thrice Manto has mentioned bathing in Toba Tek Singh. First, a Muslim lunatic faints, while bathing, after slipping on floor due to his high sounding slogan of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’. In the second instance, a Muslim lunatic, who calls himself Jinnah, has an obsessive habit of taking baths. After the news of transfer, he stops bathing. Due to his confrontation with another inmate, he is declared dangerous. The third time, the Sikh lunatic, Bhashan Singh, is described to bath rarely but also as ‘be zarrar (not dangerous)’. This description is in complete opposition to the description of Muslim lunatic.

Bathing has an element of purity attached to it. Various interpretations can be drawn from it. In using it repeatedly, Manto might be trying to draw a line between the purity of the soul and the external mask of it. He might also be targeting the idea of Pakistan (the land of the pure). Anything not Pakistani , more precisely non Islamic, was, still is, considered as dangerous and often portrayed as posing an existential threat to the Muslims but in the instances mentioned above the threat is shown to lie within.