TREATMENT OF THE MARGINALIZED IN THE SELECT SHORT STORIES OF KHUSHWANT SINGH Dadas Anil N.

As a prolific and India’s best-known writer, Khushwant Singh has multidimensional view towards life. When Khushwant Singh writes anything it attracts immediate attention and has also potential for tremendous impact, positive or negative. His genius as a writer has been recognized all over the world. He has touched almost all the forms of literature. He began his career as a short story writer and published The Mark of Vishnu and Other Stories in 1950. Khushwant Singh is also the best known for his novels. His masterpiece, Train to Pakistan (1956), was produced with a brilliant cast. It is necessary to analyze Khushwant Singh’s short stories to see either his female characters are marginalized or he has given them due credit to them. It is because marginalization or social exclusion is generally a curse to woman at individual level and society at public level which is a hindrance in the welfare of women. Mostly, the mindset of women is made to understand oppression and marginalization as a problem of system (male dominance) and not as the individual fault.