Bapsi Sidhwa as a novelist

Bapsi Sidhwa Born on August 11th, 1938 in Karachi., Belongs to the Parsi community,
Zoroastrian, a distinctive minority who left Iran for South Asia to avoid the religious persecution.
A polio victim at the age of 2, that is why she was educated at home till the age of 15 by an
Anglo-Indian lady. She explores abuse against women, justified by a patriarchal society, making
the woman a double victim. Bapsi Sidhwa is an acclaimed Pakistani writer, whose focus is on
women’s experience in the time of Partition in India.

Bapsi is described and recognized as the ‘’doyenne of Pakistani literature in English’’

(Mohsin Siddique)

Unforgettable Works of Bapsi

Her first three writings focused on the Parsi community and families residing in Lahore.
The Ice Candy Man
The Ice Candy Man This is the first novel by a woman novelist from Pakistan in which she
describes about the fate of people in Lahore and entrancing partition of India through the eyes of
a precocious 8 years handicapped Parsi girl. The narrator, young Lenny Sethi, is kept out of
school because she suffers from polio. She spends her days with Ayah, her beautiful nanny, visiting
with the large group of admirers that Ayah draws.’

The Crow Eaters

The Crow Eaters addressed serious historical and cultural issues written in farcical and humorous
style portraying the Parsi culture elements. The story takes place over the first half of the
twentieth century, and concerns the fortunes of a Parsi man, Faredoon “Freddy” Junglewalla.

The Bride

The Bride explains events of partition through story of a Kohistani tribesmen and a young
adorable girl he adopts soon after sighting the deadly massacre in which the girl’s whole family
was killed. The Bride interpolate Zaitoon’s (young girl) story with that of Carol who was a
beautiful American woman not happy with her marriage to the Pakistani engineer.

Sidhwa as a Feminist
Sidhwa can be termed as a great feminist but the account of Sidhwa‘s fiction regarding feminism
is never complete unless we refer to the feminism portrayed in the novel The Ice Candy Man.
The novel is basically a story about the impact and effect of partition on the lives of women in
the Indian sub-continent. This shows how Sidhwa has made the self-interest of a woman
more important than that of man. Sidhwa also attaches the quality of heroism to the
women of Parsi Community.

The Pakistani Bride focuses on female suffering and the powerlessness experienced by women
within the patriarchal society depicted. The suffering is linked closely to the female body, and
the control exercised over it by male society. The female protagonists of the novel rebel against
patriarchy, but in spite of this male control takes over in the end. The feminism of The Pakistani
Bride and Cracking India is a feminism which aims to break the silence regarding the oppression
of women in Pakistan. Since the novels set out to inform and shock the reader into action, the
feminism has a focus on the description of the different ways on which female bodies are
oppressed in the patriarchal society of the novels. The novels’ focus on injustice and violence
aim to enrage the reader into taking action.

Highly Inspirational Writings of Sidhwa

In Sidhwa’s novels, she provides a wide glimpse of contemporary political situation in Pakistan.
In American Brat, she states a background of fundamentalism dispersing in Pakistan at General
Zia’s rule. Sidhwa gets ironical while featuring the dilemmas of fundamentalism. Sidhwa’s
incrimination relating fundamentalism was not only restricted to Muslim communities but also
targeted other communities. Sidhwa exposes the narrow-mindedness and insular attitude of the
American society. Bapsi with her acute characterization, humor and optimistic outlook tackles
with some of the contemporary problems. Through her writings, it’s apparent that she has been a
part of cultural multiplicity. Strikingly, Sidhwa popularized the fashion and extremely open
viewpoints on sex by Saadat Hussin Manto. Her emphasis has always laid upon the Parsi
societies and their problems. In modern era, Parsi community was although affluent yet faced
fear of becoming a minority group. Bapsi with her brains, understood Parsi’s antiquity, beliefs
and faiths, unveiling mysteries of her community’s life.