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ISSN 2278-9529
Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal
www.galaxyimrj.com
www.the-criterion.comThe Criterion: An International Journal in English
ISSN: 0976-8165
Bapsi Sidhwas Magic Casements: An Analysis of the Titles of
Sidhwas Novels
Sikta Moitra
Bhairab Ganguly College
West Bengal State University
Abstract:
Title of a literary piece ,be it a drama, a novel or a short story, is like a magic
casement through which we can peep into the narrative that aims at producing
vivid effects in the readers. The title of a novel has to seize the attention of its
readers at the outset and the narrative has to gather all the incidents in detail,
more and more until the climax is reached. A writer may choose an incident that
will reveal his attitude towards life (such as The Outsider by Albert Camus
which reflects the novelists existential attitude towards life); the name of a
character that looms large in the course of the narrative (Toni Morrisons Beloved); or a symbol that stands for a larger dimension in the happenings that follow (Amitav Ghoshs The Shadow Lines). This paper intends to analyse the titles and their implications in Bapsi Sidhwas novels.
Keywords: Literature, Fiction, Partition, Society, Feminism, Politics, Religion, Communal riots, Post colonialism, Self-discovery, Migration.
Fiction, the most vital branch of literature, records facts of human life, social
conditions and values. And a novelist can be defined as a socio-political person
whose main aim is to make this earth a better place by formulating and fostering
certain principles. A novelist is expected to provide some serious socio-political,
religious issues and problems wrapped by entertainment. Bapsi Sidhwa belongs
to the writers, who are well aware of the dialectical relationship between a culture
and its art; who are conscious of the dynamics between their roles as writers and
the society they live in. Though Bapsi Sidhwa belongs to India, Pakistan and the
United States simultaneously, she prefers to be described as a Punjabi-PakistaniParsi woman. All her four novels- The Crow Eaters, The Pakistani Bride, IceCandy-Man or Cracking India and An American Brat are based on her perceptions of life as a Parsi, Punjabi and Pakistani woman. Besides these, she has
written another novel named Water which is based on a film by Deepa Mehta of
the same name. Sidhwas novels contain a good deal of autobiographical elements.
Bapsi Sidhwas writings reflect the Parsi ethos very clearly. The greatness of a
novelist lies in his/her capacity to arouse variety of reactions in the readers. And
Sidhwa undoubtedly has succeeded in this section. The themes of her novels reflect the vast range of her interests which is not confined to any particular genre
just as comic, religion or partition. It is important to note that Sidhwa has always
been able to provide titles, well suited to her enormous themes. Easily, we can
trace how her one novel differs from her other novels both in treatment and subject. She has dealt with the Parsi milieu, social idiosyncrasies of the small minority, theme of marriage, feminist issues, partition crisis, and expatriate experi-
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ences. This wide range of themes helps her to grow not only as a powerful novelist but also as a keen observer of human behaviour and society. This paper aims
to examine the appropriateness of the titles Sidhwa has employed in her novels
and their various implications; whether they justify the themes she has offered or
not. Here I am going to discuss four major novels of Bapsi Sidhwa- , The Crow
Eaters, The Pakistani Bride, Ice-Candy-Man or Cracking India and An
American Brat.
Although Bapsi Sidhwa wrote The Pakistani Bride before The Crow Eaters,
the latter was published before The Pakistani Bride in 1978. A small minority in
the sub-continent of India, the Parsi community, is referred to as crow eaters by
other native population because they talk too loudly and too much. The novel
The Crow Eaters takes us on a journey through flash back. The chief protagonist
of the novel, dying Faredoon Junglewalla, narrates the story of his early life to his
children and other neighbouring kids. He remembers how he embarked on a journey from Punjab to Lahore with his family; how he struggled with his mother-inlaw for control over his household; how he plotted a scheme of setting fire to his
own shop in order to get money from the insurance company and how he
achieved power and position in his society.
The Crow Eaters is a striking novel which represents the Parsi community in
true manners. Sidhwa points out various aspects and features of Parsi community.
At the outset of the novel, she provides us an account of the historical background
of Parsis; their journey from Persia to India.
In the course of the novel, Sidhwa highlights religious beliefs, appearances, social
behaviour and customs of Parsi community. Traditional Parsi culture and their
dressing manners differentiate them from other cultures: men wear white pyjamas
with starched white coat-wrap fastened with bows at the waist and the women
wear saris with white mathabanas which covers their head like a skull cap and a
holy thread around their waists. Faredoon, Putli, their children and Jerbanno are
seen to follow this dress code.
Parsis have some different and striking rituals regarding their dead ones. They
keep their dead ones on open-roofed enclosures atop hills to be swallowed by the
vultures. These enclosures are called Tower of Silence:
...the marble floor slopes towards the centre
where there is a deep hollow. This receives
the bones and blood. Undergrounds ducts
from the hollow lead to four deep wells outside the Tower. These wells are full of lime,
charcoal and sulphur and provide an excellent filter.1 (The Crow Eaters, 45)
Fire is the most sacred thing according to the Parsi prophet Zarathustras teaching
and Parsi community considers smoking as a sin. In the present novel, when one
of Faredoons servants is caught smoking, the boy receives a terrible beating. Parsis have a strong belief in stars and astrology. In The Crow Eaters, whenever
Faredoon feels tensed, he goes to the fortune-tellers. His visit to the Brahmin,
Gopal Krishan is evidence of his belief in astrology.
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Parsis have an interesting way to convey their desire of marriage to their elders.
They add some salt to the drinking water. After drinking that water, the head of
the family approaches to them to know their wish. Faredoon performed this ritual
at the time of his marriage and the same is repeated when his son Yazdi wants to
get married. Parsis do not permit out-of-community marriage. In The Crow Eaters, hearing Yazdis desire to marry the Anglo-Indian girl Rosy Watson, Faredoon slaps him and strictly opposes this marriage:
You have the gall to tell me you want to
marry an Anglo-Indian? Get out of my
sight. Get out.2 (The Crow Eaters, 123)
On the other hand, Mrs. Easymoney accepts the proposal of Billy (another son of
Faredoon) for her daughter Tanya just because the boy is Parsi and well off. The
Crow Eaters provides a detailed account of the Parsi way of marriage. The marriage of Billy and Tanya has been described with full details:
The officiating priest eventually recited...say whether you have agreed to take
this maiden named Tanya in marriage to
this bridegroom in accordance with the rites
and customs of the Mazda worshippers,
promising to pay her 2000 dirhems of pure
white silver and two dinars of standard gold
of Nishadpur coinage?3 (The Crow Eaters,
223)
A culture has always been identified by the language and living style of the people who dwell within it. The Crow Eaters is written in a comic mode. It is a very
humorous novel which celebrates the achievements of a tiny community, a community which has gone through migration, resettled peacefully and prospered
without losing its cultural identity. This novel was criticized by a section of Parsi
community which considered the novel an unfair portrayal as Sidhwa has revealed here the communitys secrets to the world. Sidhwa, however, refutes this
criticism:
Because of a deep rooted admiration for my
diminishing community- and an enormous
affection for it- this work of fiction has
been a labour of love.4 (The Crow Eaters,
authors note, 7)
The sole object of writing The Crow Eaters seems to introduce the Parsi community, its culture, rituals and customs to the world. There are also traces of freedom movement, the Second World War, feminist issues, the colonial impacts and
other themes. But the lime light throughout the novel has been thrown on Parsi
community and its way of living. And Sidhwas title The crow Eaters is, undoubtedly well suited to the major themes of the novel; it gives the novel both
implicit and explicit dimensions. Implicitly it suggests the psyche of a minor
community and explicitly it anticipates the comic elements of the novel.
Sidhwas second novel The Pakistani Bride (1983) is completely different from
her first novel The Crow Eaters in its subject and treatment. This novel seems to
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be based on a true story Sidhwa heard when she and her family camped in the
tribal regions of Karakoram Mountains. The novel deals with the issues such as
the plight of women, disparity between Pakistani and tribal society, effects of the
Partition so on and so forth. But the novelist here pays special attention to
womens issues. The novel narrates the story of the struggle of a Pakistani bride
named Zaitoon. Sidhwa, besides this story, provides a parallel story of an American brides life in Pakistan. The novel starts with an argument between two
tribesmen regarding a debt one of them named Qasim had not returned to the
other. Ultimately they settle the repayment of the loan by giving Qasims daughter Zaitoon in marriage instead. Zaitoon is Qasims foster-daughter. After losing
his family in smallpox epidemics, Qasim, when working as a watchman in
Jalandhar, met a child named Munni. Munni had lost her parents one day when
they were travelling in a train. The girl, Munni reminds Qasim of his dearest
daughter Zaitoon. At first, Qasim tries to ignore the girl but gradually his heart
moves to tenderness:
Munni, you are like the smooth, dark, olive,
the Zaitoon that grows near our hills... the
name suits you... I shall call you Zaitoon.5
(The Pakistani Bride, 30)
Thus, Munni becomes Qasims daughter Zaitoon.
After spending a few days at a refugee camp in Lahore, Qasim settles in Quilla
Gujjar Singh where Zaitoon starts to grow up under the shadow of her father. In
the course of the narrative, Qasim reaches at the age of fifty and becomes nostalgic about his past life in Kohistan. Nostalgia makes Qasim back in the remote
world of Kohistan where he arranges Zaitoons marriage to settle an age old loan
once he had taken. Sidhwa skilfully exposes the world of savagery into which
Zaitoon is destined to enter. After her marriage with Sakhi, all her romantic notions about the tribal life are shattered:
The past week had been too much for her:
her emotions had soared to unaccustomed
heights of adulation, tenderness and passion; her dreams are rocketed to the stars.
Then come the mercurial change that sent
her crashing back into blind chasms.6 (The
Pakistani Bride, 169)
Zaitoon is shocked at the brutal treatment of Sakhi as well as other tribal men to
their women. Zaitoon confronts a completely unfamiliar and savage surrounding.
Meanwhile Qasim leaves Zaitoon alone with her fate. Sakhi is cruel not only to
Zaitoon but to every women including his own mother. One thing is clear that a
woman whether she is a mother or wife is destined to receive ill-treatments from
men in tribal society. There is no civilization, no touch of law in the tribal society.
When Zaitoon realises that all her efforts to adjust the tribal savagery are futile,
she decides to run away. She knows that it is impossible to get rid of the tribal
men. The mountains whose magic once made her spell bound, are now her enemies. For nine days and nights she wanders the mountains like a wounded deer
haunted by the tribal wolves. On her way, she is raped by two men. Finally, she
reaches to major Mushtaq and his military camp. Sidhwa artistically describes
Zaitoons journey from the plains to the Snow Mountains and back to the plains
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reflecting the inner journey of the young woman from her own world of fantasy
to the stark reality.
Besides the story of Zaitoon, Sidhwa in her subplot exposes the story of an
American bride, Carol in Lahore. Carol falls in love with a Pakistani engineer Farukh. She accompanies Farukh on his posting at the mounts of Kohistan. Gradually carol and Farukhs relationship turns into a bitter one due to Farukhs distrust
and suspicions. Being unable to cope with Farukhs repression, Carol eventually
finds herself in an affair with major Mushtaq. But when carol demands a stable
relationship, Mushtaq simply refuses her as to have an illicit affair with an
American woman is enough to satisfy his hunger for a womans body in such a
remote area but abandoning his wife and family for that woman is beyond question. Again Sidhwa brings the social structure and the hypocrisy of men before
us.
Carol and Zaitoon meet coincidentally and Carol identifies her own fate with that
of Zaitoons. Here Sidhwa reveals the plight of a Pakistani woman through the
eyes of an American woman. She presents two brides from two entirely different
cultures but with the same fate. Both are the victims of patriarchy. Through these
stories, Sidhwa mocks at the institution of marriage in which women are mere
puppets at the hands of the men. Zaitoons escape from the chain of her marriage
should be regarded as her triumph over the male chauvinism. In this context,
Cynthia Abrioux remarks:
Zaitoon is ultimately protected and saved,
which suggests that an awesome, ancient,
natural order combined with a young girls
defiant spirit can overcome the oppressive
shackles of a conspiracy of men.7 (C. Abrioux, Commonwealth Essays and Studies)
In this novel, Sidhwa emphasizes the differences of two cultures which can never
meet, be they of Pakistani, and American or the mountains and the plains. Zaitoon, a girl, brought up in the liberal environment of Lahore can never cope with
the tribal savagery. Similarly, Carol, an American woman cannot adjust Pakistans fundamental and conservative outlook. The novelist, here, also brings the
theme of partition crisis which killed Zaitoons own parents. But her main focus
in The Pakistani Bride is always on the plight of women. The Pakistani Bride
exposes the same fate of many brides whose stories remain unspoken; whose
tears, the world can never see; whose sacrifices have never been admitted or admired. From this thorough analysis of the major themes of the novel, it is clear
that the justification of the title The Pakistani Bride is beyond question. It exactly anticipates the themes Sidhwa has dealt with in this novel.
The title of Bapsi Sidhwas third novel, Ice-Candy-Man (1988) was changed
from Ice-Candy-Man into Cracking India in 1991 because Sidhwas American
publishers feared that an American reader might mistake the unfamiliar name for
a drug pusher. The title Ice-Candy-Man, first, was titled after a character named
Dilnawaz who is a street vendor. In order to understand the implication of the title, first of all we should have a glance at the story.
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Ice-Candy-Man depicts the living pictures of the 1947 Partition of India and
Pakistan through the eyes of a girl child, Lenny, who is neither Hindu nor Muslim
or Sikh, but a minority Parsi. On account of being physically handicapped by polio, Lenny always accompanies her Hindu Ayah Shanta who has access to all
strata of the society. This Ayah is young, vivacious, and has many admirers- the
Government House gardener, the Sethi family cook Imam Din, the sepoy, the
butcher, the wrestler, the zoo attendant, the Masseur and of course the popsicle
vendor Ice-Candy-Man. They represent almost all faiths and communities of Indian subcontinent. Communal riots between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs spread
from towns to small villages as in Imam Dins village Pir Pindo. At this critical
socio-political juncture, Ayahs admirers as mentioned above, serve important
roles to present the changing atmosphere faithfully.
Eventually, a Muslim mob stops outside Sethi house and enquires about its Hindu
servants, especially the Hindu Ayah Shanta but the cook tells them about her fake
departure. Out of innocence, Lenny discloses about Ayahs hiding place to the title character- the Ice- Candy- Man. The angry and furious Muslims drag her out
of the Sethi House and later as Lenny discovers, that opportunist, Ice-Candy-Man
takes her Hira Mandi while the latter is forced to prostitution. However, later
Lennys godmother rescues Ayah, now renamed as Mumtaz. She is ultimately restored to her family in Amritsar with the help of Lennys godmother and mother.
The novel, Ice-Candy-Man offers the irrefutable reason of the Partition as an irresistibly extended branch of fundamentalism generated by the communal hatred.
This Partition not only caused disharmony but also turned this disharmony into
frenzy and chaos. Sidhwa, in this novel, produces a number of socio-political issues such as conflicting attitudes of Muslim League and Congress; riots in Punjab
and its Partition, attacks on women so on surrounding its major theme of the Partition. At the eve of the Partition, the discourse of secular nationalism and intimacy, with which Lenny has been brought up, finally comes to its end. In this
context, we should discuss one incident, described in the novel, as a prime example of the sudden change in human nature generated by the violence of the Partition: one day, while Masseur, Hari, Sher Sing and the Government House gardener, sitting on Shankars neglected verandah at the back of Lennys house, are
listening to the news on the radio, Ice-Candy-Man suddenly appears:
A train from Gurdaspur has just come in,
he announces, panting. Everyone in it is
dead. Butchered. They are all Muslim.
There are no young women among the
dead! Only two gunny-bags full of
womens breasts8 (Ice-Candy-Man, 149)
He looks hatefully at his longstanding friend Sher Singh, as if he is the culprit. A
few days later, Sher Singh flees from Lahore as one of his sisters is raped and her
husband is killed by some goons including the Ice-Candy-Man. This is the height
of communalism. Friends have turned into foes. Only a few months before, IceCandy-Man, who helped his friend Sher Singh and said: Im first a friend to my
friends And then a Mussulman!9 (Ice-Candy-Man, 122) now confesses: I
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lobbed grenades through the windows of Hindus and Sikhs Id known all my life!
I hated their guts I want to kill someone of each breast they cut of the Muslim
women 10(Ice-Candy-Man, 156). The effect of this sudden changed human behaviour on the child narrator Lenny is reflected in her comment:
It is sudden. One day everybody is themselves- and the next day they are Hindu,
Muslim, Sikh, Christian. People shrink,
dwindling into symbols. Ayah is no longer
me all-encompassing Ayah- she is also a
token. A Hindu.11 (Ice-Candy-Man, 93)
The brutally murdered bodies of the Muslims in the train from Gurdaspur completely transform the kind and loving Ice-Candy-Man into a violent and frenzied
person. His love for Ayah fails to influence him and hold away from evil in him.
He does not realise his sin in exploiting the innocence of Lenny. Even though IceCandy-Man later marries Ayah, it seems to be a callous marriage because he has
already murdered Ayahs soul. Hence his confession to godmother does not justify his mischief. Ayah can never forget her sexual and mental torture. Masseurs
murder has already taken out her liveliness. After Ayahs rehabilitation, IceCandy-Man waits for her outside the camp. He sings songs and becomes a dejected lover calling out for his beloved. In the last sentence of the novel Sidhwa
writes that following the Ayah, Ice-Candy-Man, too, disappears across the Wagah border into India. 12(Ice-Candy-Man, 278)
On the personal level, Ice-Candy-Man fails as a human being in the eyes of the
Ayah. On the social level, too, he fails to survive because he does nothing fruitful
either for his community or the others. Ayahs abduction or his involvement in
the violence does not change his status or that of others. He does not possess any
human values and he has no love for truth in his life. In this novel Sidhwa colours
his character with many shades- as a keen Popsicle vendor; a bird seller; a pretentious Sufi claiming he is Allahs telephone; the fanatic leader of a mob; a poet reciting poetry to woo Ayah. The Ice-Candy-Man is a story about love lost, trust
deceived, manipulation, redemption and shrugging off positivity. And remarkably
all of these issues have been experienced by the Ice-Candy-Man- sometimes as an
oppressor; sometimes as a victim. From this perspective, The Ice-Candy-Man
seems to be a character oriented title- a metonymic title at which a simple glance
of the reader is enough to understand who is the centre of the entire narrative.
As it has been stated earlier, we all know that the title Ice-Candy-Man was later
changed into Cracking India which also demands our attention through a thorough analysis.
We have already discussed the theme of Partition in Cracking India as a major
theme. Now a deeper analysis into the theme of Partition and the novelists comment and view is required. Sidhwa, unhappy with the literature on the theme of
Partition written by the Indian and the British writers, aims to provide another
dimension of the same theme. This novel also includes several comments on contemporary political figures. Sidhwa has presented the Pakistani perspective regarding these figures; almost all the major contemporary Indian political figures
are either caricatured or presented in an unfavourable manner. During her inter-
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view with David Montenegro, Sidhwa comments:
The main motivation grew out of my reading of a good deal of literature on the Partition of India and Pakistan... what has been
written, has been written by the British and
Indians. Naturally they reflect their bias.
And they have, I felt after Id researched the
book, been unfair to Pakistanis. As a writer,
as a human being, one just does not tolerate
injustice. I felt whatever little I could do to
correct an injustice I would like to do. I
have just let the facts speak for themselves,
and through my research I found out what
the facts were.13 (Montenegro, 36)
In Cracking India, Bapsi Sidhwa deconstructs the heroic myth of Gandhi and
Nehru and laments the misrepresentation of Jinnah by the British and Indian
Scholars. Sidhwas analysis of the politics of the Indian subcontinent during the
Partition days is not only subjective, but also, sometimes prejudiced. She considers Nehrus charm as deceptive while admires Jinnahs austerity as his positivity.
Through the child narrator Lenny, Sidhwa, actually, here tries to highlight the so
called disparity between Nehru and Jinnah; she imposes her own interpretations
of the Partition on the innocent thinking of Lenny. Her nationality as a Pakistani
biases her perceptions of the Partition. Besides this, Bapsi Sidhwa has been accused by Rashmi Gaur for providing historical incidents which are not correct:
There is no historical record of Gandhis
visit to Lahore during pre-partition days.
Similarly the reference to the famous Dandi
March by Col. Bharucha dates in 1944,
whereas it had actually taken place in the
early months of 1930. The vivid description
of the Sikh attack on the Muslim Village of
Pir Pindo is also historically inaccurate.14
(Bapsi Sidhwas Ice-Candy-Man: A
Readers companion, 44-52)
Shashi Tharoor in the review of Ice-Candy-Man regards Sidhwas intention to
give a different political dimension to the Partition theme as her weakness:
What she doesnt handle as well is politics:
when her characters discuss the issues of
the day, Ms. Sidhwas deftness collapses in
cliches.15 (Rahul Sapra, A Postcolonial Appraisal of Sidhwas Fiction, 209)
There is no denying of the fact that Cracking India contains some inaccurate
historical events and reflects Sidhwas biased perception of the Partition, but we
should not forget that being a literary piece, fiction also demands a certain
amount of imagination. From this point of view, if the historical events are
imaginary, they do no harm to the narrative; rather they help the narrative to flow
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easily. Sidhwas careful handling of the Partition theme has succeeded to portray
stark reality of bloodshed and separation. Bapsi Sidhwa enables her readers- who
have not witnessed the horror of the Partition directly- to understand and feel the
extent of the trauma and violence of the Partition. Above all, the justification of
the title of the novel Cracking India lies in its ability to arouse such questions in
the minds of the readers- is it really possible to crack a country? Is not this cracking of India is actually the cracking of the million souls? Whatever the answers
might be, the immediate impact of the title on the readers, is really moving.
The issues of cultural differences, which we have also witnessed in Sidhwas earlier novels (The Crow Eaters, The Pakistani Bride) now, turn to the centre
from the periphery in her fourth novel, An American Brat (1993). When answering a question put by Naila Hussain about the theme of An American Brat,
Sidhwa explains:
Naturally, the book deals with the subject of
the cultural- shock young people from the
subcontinent have to contend with when
they choose to study abroad. It also delineates the clashes the divergent cultures generate between the families back home and
their transformed and transgressing progeny
bravely groping their way in the New
world.16 (On the Writers world, 8-9)
It is important to note that the uprooting of the individuals, or individuals as a part
of minor social or communal group from their native lands, their struggle to fit
into and survive in a country with completely different socio-cultural ways, and
their yearning for the roots have become popular themes of the postcolonial writing. Even in our present novel, An American Brat, peculiar experience caused
by migration, and rediscovery of self become the major issues and prime concerns of the novelist, Bapsi Sidhwa.
The novel, An American Brat unfolds the story of a sixteen years old Parsi girl,
Feroza Ginwalla, from Lahore. The influence of Pakistani fundamentalism on
Feroza makes her parents Cyrus and Zareen Ginwalla worried about her. Feroza
becomes more and more orthodox. Zareen is perturbed by the thought that her
daughters orthodox nature may make her a misfit in their community in future.
On the other hand, Cyrus is worried about another kind of identity crisis: he fears
that her susceptible daughter would fall in love and marry a non-Parsi-boy or a
Muslim boy. To solve this problem, Cyrus and Zareen decide to send Feroza to
the United States for a holiday trip. They think this trip will help her to overcome
her narrow and confined outlook. Feroza becomes extremely happy at the news of
her holiday trip to America. For her, America stands for the land of glossy
magazines, of bewitched and star trek, of rock stars and jeans...17 (An American Brat, 27)
At the airport, Feroza receives all the instructions by her elders patiently and
throughout her journey, she behaves according to her elders instructions. When
the plane lands at the Kennedy airport, Ferozas eyes become dazzled by the
bright light, warmed air, extraordinary cleanliness of the country. But soon a ter-
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rific jolt comes to Feroza when the custom officials accuse her as her Pakistani
passport opens from the wrong end- unlike English; Urdu is written from right to
left and vice versa. This confusion generates a number of questions- how long she
would stay; where she would stay; who would support her; how old is her uncle;
what does he do; is he a US citizen, or resident or visitor.
Feroza, unfamiliar with the surrounding, faces lot of troubles in her way. She becomes puzzled seeing the moving staircase, escalator and finally the way of inserting the dollar bills. A young American, with a flirtatious smile, helps her to
insert the dollar bill. Feroza is surprised to see the easy and confident manner of
this young man: How easily he talked to her, his gestures open, confident. She
wished she could have responded to his readiness to be friends, but she was too
self-conscious18 (An American Brat, 58). Gradually a strong awareness starts to
take hold on Feroza: she is here a stranger to the Americans, and they are also
strangers for her. She feels suddenly so free of the thousand constrains that governed her life. She feels secure to find her uncle Manek. But then another blow
comes to her. A woman in blue uniform reminds her that she must go in for a
secondary inspection. A simple interrogation gradually turns into the inspection
of each and every item in her bag- the shoes, the toiletries, the underwear, a sanitary pad. This humiliation causes tears, rolling down Ferozas cheeks. The immigration officer even starts to comment on her relationship with Manek. Both immigration officers, pointing one of Ferozas nightgowns, say that it is the wedding negligee 19(An American Brat, 64) Feroza might have decided to wear at
the night of her wedding with Manek. This false obligations rouse Feroza snatching the nightgown from the officers stubby to shout: To hell with you and your
damn country. Ill go back20 (An American Brat, 64).
Ferozas shout pricks the conscience of the immigration officer and he accepts
Maneks guarantee that the girl will go back at the end of three months. He also
asks Manek to provide proof of her assertions as soon as possible. The officer,
whose treatment of Feroza was so rude at first, now helps her in placing her belongings into her suitcase. Finally, Feroza and Manek move towards their residence- this move marks Ferozas initiation in the American culture.
Feroza forgets honour. At their rented place, she meets two sex maniacs. Manek
takes her on a tour of New York. She visits all the good places; sees the glamour
and luxury of the city; and she also sees the darker sides of the country. She realises that America is not only a dream land; she also has an ugly face of reality.
Gradually, Feroza learns all the small and big things about America from Manek.
Thus in a very while she gets exposed to American culture and she starts to enjoy
the freedom America offers her. Besides, she is losing her courtesies and manners. Ultimately, influenced by Manek, Feroza decides to study in America. She
moves to Southern Idaho College. She is now accustomed with English in American way; she discards Pakistani outfit and embraces jeans, t-shirts, sweaters and
blouses. Though she seems to be against skirts as she argues, Its not decent to
show your legs in Pakistan21 (An American Brat, 151). She starts smoking
which has always been considered as a cardinal sin according to the Parsi community.
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In the winter vacation, Feroza goes back to Lahore and receives a warm and
hearty welcome from her family. But ironically she finds herself misfit in the
family and country she actually belongs. She refuses her parents proposal of her
marriage. Ferozas mother and grandmother are astonished at her change. The
timid creature has grown into a confident creature. However, she returns to America and eventually falls in love with David Press, a blue-eyed handsome, young
American Jew. One Sunday, David takes her to his home for a Sabbath meal with
his parents Adina and Abe Press. When Adina asks few polite questions about her
religion, Feroza, for the first time realises her religious differences with David.
Feroza goes to Houston to spend her Christmas vacation with her uncle Manek
and aunt Aban. Manek has changed his name from Manek Junglewalla to Mike
Junglevala to fit in well with the American society. Feroza enjoys her ten days
stay with them very much. On the last day, she tells them about David and says:
I really love the guy22 (An American Brat, 262). After a few moment of silence,
Manek thoughtfully remarks:
It all seems wonderful now, but marriage is
something else: our cultures are very different. Of course Im not saying it cant work,
but you have to give it time. Well keep in
touch on the phone, see how it goes? Manek
ended on a tentative note, at last looking directly at Feroza. It was a caring look, and
Feroza felt a surge of relief and gratitude.23
(An American Brat, 263)
Finally, Feroza decides to marry David and informs her family about her decision. Her mother sets out to America to dissuade her daughter from marrying outof-community. When Feroza disobeys her, Zareen rages: I should never have let
you go so far away. Look what its done to you- you have become an American
brat!24 (An American Brat, 279). Zareen fears for being excommunicated from
Zoroastrian community due to her daughters out-of-community marriage. She
regards Ferozas decision as a cultural suicide.
Zareen sets a mission of making differences between Feroza and David. Her extravagant description of Parsi culture and rituals, humiliation to American Jews,
gradually make David distressed. His angry attitude reflects Zareens success to
create distance between the two lovers. Zareen notices Ferozas unhappiness but
she fails to realise that she, herself is creating her daughters unhappiness. She
takes it in the way that her own admiring and loving eyes have cast a malign spell
on Feroza. One day, she drags the drowsy Feroza into the kitchen and takes three
jalapeno peppers. Holding the peppers in her fist, she draws seven circles in the
air over Ferozas head and whispers a hodgepodge of incantations. Then she cast
the peppers on the burning stove. The room is filled with an uncomfortable acrid
stench. This incident makes David scared, he cries out: oh God! What are you?
A witch or something?25 (An American Brat, 304)
Davids feelings for Feroza undergo a change. Ferozas exoticism, at first, which
makes him allured to her, now shows him the huge cultural differences between
them:
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The very thing that had attracted him to
Feroza, her exoticism, now frightened
David. Zareen had made him feel that he
and Feroza had been too cavalier and callow in dismissing the dissimilarities in their
backgrounds. He felt inadequate, wondering
if he could cope with some of the rituals
and behaviour that, despite his tolerant and
accepting liberality, seemed bizarre. Stuff
his mouth with sweets; break a coconut on
his head! Were he by some gross mischance
accepted to the Zoroastrian faith, which fortunately was not permissible, hed have the
singular honor of having his remains devoured by vultures and crows in a ghastly
Tower of Silence.26 (An American Brat,
309)
Ultimately, Davids new-born awareness of his cultural differences with Feroza,
leads their relationship to an end. Zareen goes back to Lahore as she has succeeded in her mission. A shocked and uprooted Feroza feels insecure. However,
she rebounds back. Instead, she lives in America. She can bear the pain of dislocation but she cannot abandon the freedom America has given her. She finds that
she can share her sense of dislocation with thousands of new comers like her in
America. Randhir Pratap singh finely puts this in Bapsi Sidhwa:
Feroza has tasted freedom and she now
cannot give it up. She decides to manage
her life to suit her heart and pursue happiness in her own sweet way. She will marry
a man whom she comes to like and live
without bothering herself whether he is a
Parsi or of different faith. She has learnt her
lesson and in future she will not allow anyone to meddle in her personal affairs. As for
her religion, she is Parsi and she will continue to be Parsi. If the priests in Lahore
and Karachi do not let her enter the fire
temple, she will go to one in Bombay where
there are so many Parsis that no one will
know whether she is married to a Parsi or to
a non-Parsi.27 (Bapsi Sidhwa, 83-84)
Thus Ferozas story highlights the mental structure of the multicultural society
especially of ethnic groups and migrants. She represents all expatriates who find
it very difficult to balance their tradition and modernity, present and past, dependence and freedom, native and non-native-all the binary oppositions. At first,
we see that Sidhwa exposes the cruel and very harsh realities before Feroza when
she lands in America. She is so nave and childish that she even does not know
her uncles address. Through little unrealistic incidents as the one, mentioned
above, Sidhwa shocks the readers to warn them that the New World is not as sim-
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ple as stepping into the liberal ways of life but a person has to be a responsible
citizen, knowledgeable enough to confront the outer world of equals. Ferozas
expatriate experience; her transformation from a conservative Pakistani girl into
an American brat lead her to discovery of her own self.
In An American Brat, Bapsi Sidhwa has properly treated the theme of cultural
differences and divergences, resulted from the migration. Migration that seems to
lead to separation may be seen as the rebirth-rebirth in a new place or city or
country, marked by a new culture, different atmosphere and temperament. From
this perspective, the title of the novel An American Brat is apt in anticipating
the transformation of a Pakistani girl into an American brat.
From the analysis of the major themes which Sidhwa has dealt with in her fictions, one thing is clear to us- with the development of Sidhwa as a novelist, her
themes have crossed the periphery of the Parsi community and have entered into
the broader areas of the Partition, migration, multiculturalism so on and so forth.
Rituparna Roy rightly puts Nilufer Bharuchas observation on this development:
Nilufer Bharucha reads this development in
Sidhwas novels as essentially an exploration of the Parsi, ethnic identity and its
eventual assimilation in the larger milieu.
According to Bharucha, with each succeeding novel of Sidhwa, the assertion of the
theme of Parsee identity gradually wanes,
and the Partition theme gets correspondingly stronger as the characters become integrated into their environment and overcome their anxieties as a social and political
minority in the nation of their domicile.
Thus, while the Junglewallahs in The Crow
Eaters are indifferent to the political fate of
the country, the Sethis in Ice-Candy-Man
become actively involved in it, in however
a personal capacity.28 (South Asian Partition Fiction in English: From Khushwant
Singh to Amitav Ghosh, 66)
The Parsi ethos is the subject of The Crow Eaters which continues in IceCandy-Man as well as in An American Brat. Oppression of and discrimination
against women is central to the narrative in The Pakistani Bride. Although Partition is the main theme of the Ice-Candy-Man it also appears in The Crow Eaters and in The Pakistani Bride. The Diaspora and multiculturalism is the pivot
of An American Brat. Thus we can see the wide range of Sidhwas themes including racial, regional, national, cultural, historical and topical issues. And Sidhwas titles truly serve as magic casements each anticipating the major themes.
Through Bapsi Sidhwas magic casements, we can peep into the fictional world,
which in the course of the narrative, emerges as the real world. As we all know
that the first impression is the last impression Sidhwas titles, at first sight, leave
an impression, a curiosity on the readers. Despite many of her faults (such as biased perception of the Partition, incorrect historical facts) her fictions drive us
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towards them; and titles have a lions part in this act of alluring the readers.
Therefore, we can conclude the topic with the statement that the titles of Bapsi
Sidhwas novels are more than mere titles, they are her magic casements.
Works Cited:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Sidhwa, Bapsi. The crow Eaters. New Delhi: Penguin, 1990. 45. Print.
Ibid.123
Ibid.223
Ibid. Authors Note,7
Sidhwa, Bapsi. The Pakistani Bride. New Delhi: Penguin, 1990. 30. Print.
Ibid.169
Abrioux, Cynthia. A Study of the Step-father and the Stranger in the Pakistani
Novel the Bride by Bapsi Sidhwa. Commonwealth Essays and Studies 13.1(
Autumn 1990): 56-85
8. Sidhwa, Bapsi. Ice-Candy-Man. New Delhi: Penguin, 1989.149. Print.
9. Ibid.122
10. Ibid.156
11. Ibid.93
12. Ibid.278
13. Interview by David Montenegro. Points of Departure: International Writers
on Writing and Politics. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1989.36.
Print.
14. Gaur, Rashmi. Treatment of Partition in Ice-Candy-Man. Bapsi Sidhwas IceCndy-Man: A Readers Companion. Ed. Rashmi Gaur. New Delhi: Asia Book
Club, 2004. 44-52. Print.
15. Sapra, Rahul. A Postcolonial Appraisal of Sidhwas Fiction. Bapsi Sidhwas
Ice-Cndy-Man: A Readers Companion. Ed. Rashmi Gaur. New Delhi: Asia
Book Club, 2004.209. Print.
16. Interview by Naila Hussain. On the Writers World. The Nation.26th May,
1993.8-9. Print.
17. Sidhwa, Bapsi. An American Brat. New Delhi: Penguin, 1994.27. Print.
18. Ibid.58
19. Ibid.64
20. Ibid.64
21. Ibid.151
22. Ibid.262
23. Ibid.263
24. Ibid.279
25. Ibid.304
26. Ibid.309
27. Singh, Randhir Pratap. Partition Revisited. Bapsi Sidhwa. New Delhi: Ivy
Publishing House, 2005. 83-84. Print.
28. Roy, Rituparna. South Asian Partition Fiction in English: From Khushwant
Singh to Amitav Ghosh. Amsterdam University Press.2010.66. Print.
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ISSN: 0976-8165
Other References:
1. Camus, Albert. The Outsider.
2. Morrison, Toni. Beloved.
3. Ghosh, Amitav. The Shadow Lines.
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