Bapsi Sidhwa is one of Pakistan’s most distinguished authors. Her five novels: Cracking India, The Pakistani Bride, The Crow Eaters, An American Brat, and Water have been translated and published in several languages. Her four novels reflect her personal experience of the Indian Sub-Continent’s partition, and abuse against women. She was born in August 11, 1938 in Karachi, migrated shortly to Lahore. She witnessed the bloody partition of the Indian subcontinent as a young child of 9 in 1947.
In 1978, at a time when publishing in English was practically non-existent in Pakistan, Sidhwa self-published her novel The Crow Eaters. Since then, The Bride, Cracking India, and An American Brat have been published in various countries across the world.
Cracking India (released as Ice-Candy-Man in the UK) has been made into a movie ‘Earth 1947’ by Canadian director Deepa Mehta.
Bapsi Sidhwa began her writing career at the age of 26 after visiting the Karakoram mountain-area of Pakistan with her husband. She was touched by a tragic story of a young girl who had been brought to one of the area's tribes as a bride. After being there for a short time, the girl ran away from her husband’s home. The tribals considered this a highly dishonorable act. Some of the men hunted her down and murdered her. 'When I came back to Lahore, the story haunted me,' says Bapsi Sidhwa. 'The girl’s story, the poor tribals, the way they lived, all of that I wanted to write about', she adds. The girl's story obsessed her, and she began to write. She thought she would write a short story, but it grew into her first novel The Pakistani Bride.
Sidhwa’s first three novels, although very different from one another, share what Anita Desai has described as 'passion for history and for truth telling'. Sidhwa believes that in order to understand any single event it is necessary to consider the events which led up to it.
Objective Narration
In 1978, at a time when publishing in English was practically non-existent in Pakistan, Sidhwa self-published her novel The Crow Eaters. Since then, The Bride, Cracking India, and An American Brat have been published in various countries across the world.
Cracking India (released as Ice-Candy-Man in the UK) has been made into a movie ‘Earth 1947’ by Canadian director Deepa Mehta.
Bapsi Sidhwa began her writing career at the age of 26 after visiting the Karakoram mountain-area of Pakistan with her husband. She was touched by a tragic story of a young girl who had been brought to one of the area's tribes as a bride. After being there for a short time, the girl ran away from her husband’s home. The tribals considered this a highly dishonorable act. Some of the men hunted her down and murdered her. 'When I came back to Lahore, the story haunted me,' says Bapsi Sidhwa. 'The girl’s story, the poor tribals, the way they lived, all of that I wanted to write about', she adds. The girl's story obsessed her, and she began to write. She thought she would write a short story, but it grew into her first novel The Pakistani Bride.
Sidhwa’s first three novels, although very different from one another, share what Anita Desai has described as 'passion for history and for truth telling'. Sidhwa believes that in order to understand any single event it is necessary to consider the events which led up to it.
Objective Narration
The partition is a very sensitive subject because the events of partition have been presented differently by the authors of India and Pakistan. These authors are either advocating Muslim view point or Hindu view point about the events of partition.
Sidhwa is a Zoroastrian and her depiction is rather realistic and objective. She is of the view that violence against the innocent people was committed on both sides of the border. In the sixteenth chapter of Ice Candy Man, Sidhwa presents what happened in Lahore, how the people lost their reason and murdered their fellows inhumanly. The mob of Muslim ‘goondas’ murders a Hindu Banya in such a ruthless manner as Ayah can’t witness this terrible scene, she collapses on the floor. Lenny and Ayah also witness the ‘tamasha’ of burning Hindus in Shalmi.
Sidhwa also gives an account of the horrible incident of Indian Punjab to lend credibility to her narrative. She does so by presenting Ranna’s story. Ranna explains how his village was massacred by a swarm of bloody Sikhs. All the men of the village were murdered ruthlessly and women were raped right in the mosque.
Realism
Bapsi Sidhwa is essentially a realist. Lenny is her very significant character. She is the Pip of Dickens’ Great Expectations. She is found everywhere in the novel. She is highly intelligent and a baby of very acute observation. When she starts her narration she is about four years old and when the partition takes place towards the end of the novel she is about eight years old.
What is most remarkable about Bapsi Sidhwa's perspective on the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent is her religious distance from its most immediate effects as a member of the Parsi/Zoroastrian community.
Another aspect of Sidhwa’s realism is her truth to human nature and her realistic art of characterization. Sidhwa said in an interview with dawn.
'There is a beast within human beings and if proper care is not taken it can come out and this beast has been chained by society and its law and order.'
We see that once law and order in the society vanishes, the beast comes out and human beings kill one another mercilessly.
Feminism, Abuse against Women
Bapsi Sidhwa is a confirmed and committed feminist as she constantly engages herself in advocating women rights in Benazir Bhutto’s regime.
Sidhwa criticizes child marriages in his superb novel Ice Candy Man. Ranna’s sisters are only nine and eleven years of age but Sikh granthi thinks that they must be married.
Sidhwa exposes and unmasks the dual and hypocritical attitude of our society with the help of the incident of fallen women. The society is ready to accept those barbaric men who rape and kill shamelessly but is not ready to accept women who have been kidnapped and raped without their will. Sidhwa presents the mirror in which the ugliness of our society can easily be seen.
Characterization
Sidhwa studied the contemporary society of her time. She studied men and manners. She showed the truthful spectacle of life. There are more or less seventy five characters in her novels. They compose a society of different classes. She looks at her characters objectively. She describes them as if her eyes were wandering over them. Her characters are individuals as well as types. They are real human beings.
Bapsi Sidhwa has received numerous awards and honorary professorships for her first two works The Bride, The Crow Eaters, and her two most recent novels Cracking India and An American Brat. These include the Pakistan National honors of the Patras Bokhri award for The Bride in 1985 and the highest honor in the arts, the Sitari-I-Imtiaz in 1991. Her third novel Cracking India was awarded the German Literaturpreis and a nomination for Notable Book of the Year from the American Library Association, and was mentioned as a New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year', all in 1991.
Her works have now been translated into Russian, French and German.
Sidhwa wrote Cracking India (Ice-Candy Man) in 1991, which provided the basis for Deepa Mehta’s film ‘Earth 1947’. Her novel Water, A Novel has been filmed again in Mehta’s ‘Water’.
Edward Hower in New York Newsday:
