Last night, I jumped out of my skin after hearing the heart-wrenching news of the demise of a well-known or perhaps the greatest Pakistani writer in English, Bapsi Sidhwa, who bade adieu to this transitory world in Houston, Texas, USA on the 26th of December 2024 at the age of 86. To me it feels nearly impossible to talk about modern English literature, which has been enriched by Asian authors like RK Narayan, Aravind Adiga, Vikram Seth and Arundhati Roy, and forget to mention the name of renowned Pakistani literary icon Bapsi Sidhwa, who was a celebrated author and a novelist of modern age and has left an inedible mark on modern literary landscape through her inimitable writings and positive ideas. Just like every legend, her passing too is doubtlessly a huge loss for Pakistan; and of course for her Zoroastrian community as well.
Born to Parsi Zoroastrian parents Peshotan and Tehmina Bhandara in Karachi, on the 11th of August 1938, Bapsi was of Gujarati Parsi Zoroastrian descent. Her life was no less than a rollercoaster ride even from the initial days of her birth. Roughly three months after her birth, she moved to Lahore with her family, where she contracted polio when she was merely two years old and underwent severe surgeries as a young child, which left an impact throughout her life.
Bapsi married twice in her life. Her first husband was Gustad Kerman, a Zoroastrian from Bombay, who she was married with after the completion of her graduation from Kinnaird College for Women University in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1957, at the young age of 19. She had two children from her first marriage. She experienced many things over the course of her time in Bombay, but, unluckily, peace was virtually never one of them. Unfortunately her marriage with Kerman could not last a lifetime and came to an end after five years, and Bapsi then moved back to Lahore to her parents after her separation.
After coming back to Lahore Sidhwa eventually remarried to a man named Noshir, who was also a Zoroastrian. With Noshir, she had three children and began her career as an author. One of her children is Mohur Sidhwa, who is a candidate for state representative in Arizona.
Bapsi Sidhwa penned down many a marvellous book which include Cracking India, An American Brat, The Crow Eaters, The Bride and Water.
Cracking India is a novel about the historical event that took place in 1947 when the British colony of India was split into two separate countries, India and Pakistan. It centres around the young Lenny, an upper class girl who suffers from polio. Because of her disease, she doesn't go to school, instead staying at home with her nanny Ayah. Cracking India, as the title indicates signifies the cracks which had happened not merely in India as a geographical entity but also in the psyches of the people, diverse cultures and intercommunal harmony of the region. Moreover the novel also sheds light on the massacres and bloodbaths that sparked in the region during partition.
Bapsi Sidhwa's novel American Brat focuses on the life of a young Pakistani Parsi girl Feroza in the US, who challenges the patriarchal and religious norms related to women's issues and tries to adopt and fit into the American culture. Though the American culture is exotic to her which neither accepts her nor identifies her.
Feroza Ginwalla, a pampered, protected 16-year-old Pakistani girl, is sent to America by her parents, who are alarmed by the fundamentalism overtaking Pakistan and their daughter – hoping that a few months with her uncle, an MIT graduate student, will soften the girl’s rigid thinking. Feroza, enthralled by American culture and her new freedom, insists on staying. A bargain is struck, allowing Feroza to attend college with the understanding that she will return home and marry well. As a student in a small western town, Feroza’s perceptions of America, her homeland, and herself begin to alter. When she falls in love with and wants to marry a Jewish-American, Feroza realises just how far she has come and wonders how much further she can go. This delightful coming-of-age novel is both remarkably funny and a remarkably acute portrayal of America as seen through the eyes of a perceptive young immigrant.
The novel Crow Eaters was initially self-published in English in 1978. In 1980, it was published by Sangam Books of Mumbai, India and by Cape in London. It is about a Parsi family, the Junglewallas, in pre-partition India. At the dawn of the 20th century in Pakistan, Freddy Junglewalla moves his family, pregnant wife, baby daughter, and Jerbanoo, his rotund mother-in-law, from their ancestral forest home to cosmopolitan Lahore. He opens a store, and as his fortunes grow, so does the animosity between Freddy and his mother-in-law. While Freddy prospers under British rule, life with the domineering Jerbanoo is another matter entirely.
The Crow Eaters highlights the tale of migration, relocation and conflicts for adjustment in a society. It tells the story of the ups and downs of the Junglewallas, and the hardships they faced to seek and find their fortunes.
Bapsi Sidhwa rose to international fame and recognition for her collaboration with the Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta
The book The Bride is about a child, Zaitoon, who is brutally separated from her parents on the eve of India-Pakistan independence and the aftermath of the bloody communal riots that followed. A tribal man Qasim, who is also fleeing the riots, rescues her and takes her with him to Pakistan and raises her as his own daughter. She lives happily in the city of Lahore but loses her happiness by marrying a mountain tribe man. She suffers a lot after her marriage and she is not even treated as a human being by her husband. The Bride is centred on the lives of women in a culture where men predominate and how the women are denied their fundamental rights.
Set in 1938, against the backdrop of Gandhi’s rise to power, Water follows the life of eight-year-old Chuyia (Sarala), abandoned at a widow’s Ashram, (an institution for widows to make amends for the sins from their previous life that supposedly caused a husband's death), after the death of her elderly husband. Chuyia is deposited in the ashram after her husband's death to spend the rest of her life in renunciation. Unwilling to accept her fate, she becomes a catalyst for change in the widows’ lives.
Thus this novel depicts the condition of widows in India, where they are treated poorly. In other words, we can say that Bapsi Sidhwa was successful in depicting the double standards of Indian society.
Bapsi Sidhwa rose to international fame and recognition for her collaboration with the Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta. It was her novel Ice Candy Man which she wrote in 1991, that was the basis of Mehta's award-winning film Earth in 1998. Another novel Water was the basis of the film of the same name by Mehta, which was nominated for the Academy Awards.
Bapsi received a number of awards, citations and accolades for her distinctive writings amid her career. To list down major ones: the Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe/Harward In 1986, her appointment as a Visiting Scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation Centre Bellagio, Italy, in 1991, Sitara-i-Imtiaz by the Government of Pakistan in 1991, Lila Wallace Readers Digest Award in 1994 and her induction in the Zoroastrian hall of fame in 2000.
Bapsi Sidhwa, a priceless gift by God for Pakistan, was a muse for countless readers across the world. Through her distinctive and innovative yet intriguing style of writing, she inspired generations to value the importance of reading and writing. Her evocative writings will remain fresh forever in the hearts of her admirers who hold her in very high esteem. Though Bapsi is not with us in this world anymore, she will never be forgotten and will always be missed by her admirers. Bapsi has left behind five children and a treasure of books for her readers. May the departed soul rest in peace. Amen!