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111
CHAPTER: IV ICE-CANDY-MAN / CRACKING INDIA
Much has been written about the holocaust that followed the
Partition of India in 1947. But seldom has that story been
told as touchingly, as convincingly, or as horrifyingly as it
has been by novelist Bapsi Sidhwa, seeing it through the
eyes of young Lenny. . .there is great humanity in this novel.
(Qtd. in Ice-Candy-Man)
The division of Indian subcontinent in 1947 has been among those
tragic disasters, which not only stirred soul of natives but also compelled
few of them to search for the larger meaning of savage events occurred
during the havoc; the magnitude, ambit, and influence of those barbaric
acts affected the minds of literary writers so deeply that they could not
help pouring down their grievances on paper. Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-
Man, also published as Cracking India, falls in line with so many other
great novels that have been penned down on the theme of partition on
both sides of the Radcliffe line; Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh,
Sunlight on a Broken Column by Attia Hosain, Azadi by Chaman Nahal,
A River with Three Bands by Shiv K. Kumar, and A Bend in the Ganges
by Manohar Malgonkar’s are the Indian versions of the holocaust; while
on the other hand Shadows of Time (1987) by Mehr Nigar Masroor, and
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Ice-Candy-Man by Bapsi Sidhwa put forth the Pakistani perception of the
cataclysm. Though, many Bangladeshi and Pakistani authors have also
highlighted the theme of partition in their creations, yet Indian writers
have an edge upon their foreign counterparts; Raj Gill in The Rape, H.S.
Gill in Ashes and Petals, and Kartar Singh Duggal in Twice Born Twice
Dead, all Sikh authors, have also placed the horrific events of the divide
in their novels as the juncture of the story, though theirs was a Sikh-
favoured portrayal. Attia Hosain’s Sun Light on a Broken Column is one
of the most significant books on Partition, though the holocaust is
projected as a peripheral theme in the novel; for the first time a woman as
well as Muslim-author narrates the tragic saga of partition. In The
Shadow Lines, Amitav Ghosh has spoken about the national grief of
partition using the device of a child narrator and taking the linear time
narration, but Bapsi Sidhwa has made Ice-Candy-Man distinguished from
other partition novels by using the unbiased lens of a Parsi narrator,
through which the story is portrayed; across the globe, this is so far the
only novel written by a Parsi (male or female) author based on the theme
of Partition; alongwith it, Sidhwa has the credit of being the second
woman author (after Attia Hosain) who has written on this horrifying
historical happening. Sidhwa admits in a conversation with David
Montenegro:
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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 by the British and the Indians. Naturally,
they reflect their bias. And they have, I felt after I’d
researched the book, been unfair to the Pakistanis. As a
writer, as 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 don’t think I have just let facts speak for
themselves, and through my research I found out what the
facts were. (36)
Lame girl Lenny, hailing from the Parsi heritage, is the narrator of
the novel, which seems to be Sidhwa herself, as she herself is a Parsi and
afflicted with polio in her right leg; not only this, she has also been eight
year old, like Lenny, at the time of partition. To Jugnu Mohsin, in an
interview, published in Friday Times, she admits: “I had polio as a child.
I had to have extensive treatment; my parents were advised not to send
me to school. I was tutored at home by an Anglo-Indian lady who taught
me to read and write.” Autobiographical elements of the novel impart it
an authentic colour, as London Magazine eulogizes her: “With skill and
sympathy, and a delightful sense of humour, Bapsi Sidhwa shows the
small girl Lenny growing up in comfort and tranquillity. The book’s
many characters all come to exuberant life, exhibiting the odd tastes and
114
unpredictable behaviour of real individuals” (Qtd. in Ice-Candy-Man).
The narrator and other Parsi and non-Parsi characters in the novel appear
to be highly truthful: “Like all Sidhwa’s work, the novel contains a rich
undercurrent of legend and folklore. It combines Sidhwa’s affectionate
admiration for her own community with a compassion for the
dispossessed. Her own childhood memories give the novel further depth
and resonance” (Qtd. in Ice-Candy-Man). In the novel, Ice-candy-man
throngs with a number of Muslims at Lenny’s house in search of Shanta,
a Hindu; the same incident took place in Sidhwa’s life when she was a
child; author reminisces:
When I was a child living in Lahore at the time of partition,
my maiden name was Bhandara, which sounded like a Hindu
name. After most of the riot was over, a gang of looters
came in carts into our house thinking it’s an abandoned
house and were quite shocked to see us there. At that time
our Muslim cook came out and said, ‘What do you damn
people think you’re doing? This is a Parsi household,’ and
they said ‘we thought it was Hindu household,’ and they
went away. I decided to write a story about Partition because
this scene was vivid in my mind. (Jussawalla and
Dasenbrock)
115
In Ice-Candy-Man, Sidhwa has made realistic and an extensive use
of Urdu poetry; the novel opens with the poetry of great Urdu poet Iqbal;
poets like Mirza Ghalib, Alama Iqbal, Pakistan’s national and a mystic
poets, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a Lenin prize winner, and female poets, such as,
Zehra Nigar and Kishwar Naheed, have left a great impact on Sidhwa’s
mind, and appear in the novel frequently. In her interview to Feroza
Jussawalla, she says: “Yes, my love of Urdu poetry overflows in this
book [Ice-Candy-Man]. I’ve made it part of this book and woven it into
the structure because I feel it gives a resonance to the book, a cultural
resonance. Something which is very eastern, Urdu has permeated the
book in the form of poetry” (215).
The Ice-Candy-Man is an epoch-making tale of the horrors of
partition, wherein the lofty ideal of patriotism was cruelly bartered for
communal frenzy that resulted in an involuntary divide, social and
political absurdities, and human devastation on very large scale; Bapsi
Sidhwa’s sensitive portrayal of the political disturbances and social loss,
which all the Indians faced in 1947, is worthy of admiration:
“. . .Sidhwa’s novel Ice-Candy-Man is one of the finest responses made
to the horror of the division of the subcontinent” (Qtd. in Ice-Candy-
Man).
The Partition is the shaping force of the novel; socio-political
equations altering kaleidoscopically in the pre-partition India are deftly
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presented by the novelist; growing communal tensions among the people
pertaining to different religion, in which religion is used as a definition of
individual identity, political opportunism, and power, are taken up as the
leitmotif of the novel. The scene is set in Lahore alongside the aftermath
of partition; the use of history is deliberate, but the lesson tucked in the
story is without sagginess; in an interview to Julie Rajan, Sidhwa
preaches:
If we are not going to learn lessons, we are doomed to repeat
our evils. Historically people have gone on fighting each
other for religion, for land, for women, for position, for
greed—and those elements prevail still. Man’s nature has not
changed—but one can try, and hope it will.
(www.monsoon.mag)
Sidhwa’s optimistic attitude towards the 1947 disaster, and her
attempt to learn from it and make her readers acquainted with the history
of the nation, is not only commendable but also imitable. As an author,
Sidhwa plays a proselytizing role; so, in her writing she attracts the
attention of her readers to diverse problems of the society, as women
subjugation, religious chauvinism, unjust oppression meted out to
females, and prejudiced evaluation of historical events, like the 1947
upheaval, and so forth, which are the major concerns of her novels. To
David Montenegro, the author puts forward: “But I do think that a writer
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can at least place facts so that people recognize themselves and stop
taking themselves too seriously or start seeing themselves in a more
realistic light. We all are so prone to see ourselves as a little better than
the other person” (51).
Parsi customs and life in the subcontinent during the historical feud
of 1947 are poignantly depicted in Ice-Candy-Man; their interaction with
Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs is shown in a buffer state: “Bapsi Sidhwa. .
.authentically chronicles the exodus of Parsees to India of the pre-
partition era, their world view, customs, religious practices and their
politics in the course of her novel Ice-Candy-Man” (Rao V. 183). Sidhwa
writes how a Parsi child, Lenny, living among the people of different
religions, learns from the partition and the growing rift among friends and
neighbours: “Lenny’s house being in a lush and densely populated area of
Lahore gives her a chance to befriend many big people and derives
maximum news about partition” (Patil 75). Nevertheless, Parsis, despite
having lived among people of different religions for centuries, remain
separate on the basis of religion, as Patil remarks:
The Ice-Candy-Man deals with the partition horror and the
life of Lenny, a limping girl, an Ice-candy-man, a Muslim
and an ayah, a Hindu. Lenny, the Ice-candy-man and Ayah’s
lives are governed by the event of partition and its
consequences. Still a number of characters are affected by
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the 1947’s communal troubles. Bapsi Sidhwa succeeds in
elaborating the intercommunity life from Parsi angle. (74)
Ice-Candy-Man, divided into thirty two chapters, sparkles with the
sub-continent teeming with political, social, and religious import;
partition forms the main body of the book; main events, besides Second
World War, India’s Independence, and the division of the nation, moves
around Ayah aka Shanta, a significant woman character of the novel who
is appointed by Mrs. and Mr. Sethi to look after their handicapped girl
Lenny; Shanta is a chocolate brown and short woman at the age of
eighteen years, Lenny is the narrative persona; her narration begins with
her fifth year of age, and it comes to an end after her eighth birthday. Due
to her disability, Lenny feels herself different from other children, and
thus feels solitariness; to fill up life’s emptiness, she spends her day with
her lovable companion, Shanta and her friends. Shanta has friends in all
communities; Imam Din, the Ice-candy-man, Yousaf, Hari, and Moti, are
all her admirers; everyday, all these friends arrange meeting, and make
gossips at Queen’s Park. The news of Hindus killing Muslims bursts into
flames of revenge among the Lahore Muslims; they start attacking
Hindus, and Sikhs; on fearing this, Hari, the gardener, converts to Islam,
and becomes Himmat Ali. The whirlwind of Partition perturbs the unity
and affection of the friends also; in the wake of communal riots, Shanta is
abducted and her lover, Masseur, is bumped off by her once-time friend
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and admirer, Ice-candy-man; on the one hand, he deceives Shanta and
makes her a dancing girl at Hira Mandi, a brothel house; while on the
other, he goes down the aisle with her. What is remarkable about him is
his transformation; he repents and goes to India in search of Shanta,
indeed, in search of his love, and his beloved; Jagdev Singh rightly
observes: “. . .the Ice-Candy-man is willing to leave the land that he so
much cherishes, for the sake of his Hindu beloved, is not only an example
of self-sacrifice but also symbolic of a future rapprochement between the
two warring communities- the Muslims and Hindus” (175). N. S. Gundur
opines: “The story of Ayah and the Ice-candy-man is important for the
angle from which it looks at the Partition. Because, it is invested with
symbolic mode” (70).
Lenny’s eighth birthday records the birth of the new nation, as an
outcome of partition; so, her birthday fails to arouse any enthusiasm in
her parents, as for their neighbours are engaged in, and everybody is
anxious about the ongoing riots, and their uncertain and perilous future;
Mr. and Mrs. Singh come to Lenny’s family and ask her father to store a
few things in the hope that things would subside. Shanta’s admirers are
also tense in the grim communal situation; suddenly, Ice-candy-man
appears dried up, shrivelled, and looks frantic; he tells that the train from
Gurudaspur has only dead bodies of Muslims; Lenny feels that all of
Shanta’s friends are growing suspicious of one another. Ice-candy-man
120
gives Shanta a gold-coin looted from the house of Kirpa Ram, the
moneylender, but she refuses to accept; Moti and Papoo decide to convert
to Christianity; Lenny, a Parsi, among them, is startled and terrified by
these changes; Masseur proposes Shanta to marry and she accepts the
proposal, while Lenny protests against her decision.
Sidhwa gives a sordid account of this devastation unleashed by the
divide; displacement of millions of people and the Hindu leaders
canvassing in favour of Britishers is depicted vividly. Hari alias Himmat
Ali, accompanying Lenny, find Masseur’s body in a gunny sack; the
incident is portrayed in an objective manner and it highlights the macabre
morbidity of the scene.
The life of Parsis was deeply affected by the horrors of the events
occurred on the eve of partition; they felt marginalised not only at the
time of pre-partition but even after partition; the novel depicts their fear
in the aftermath of partition; the use of words like power and rule is
meaningful in this context; commenting upon the freedom struggle, Col.
Bharucha, a Parsi, says: “It is no longer just a struggle for Home Rule. It
is a struggle for power. Who’s going to rule once we get Swaraj? . .
.Hindus, Muslims and even the Sikhs are going to jockey for power: and
if you jokers jump into the middle you’ll be mangled into chutney!” (Ice-
Candy-Man 36) Parsis realized that their life in the divided country would
be in peril; they had never been a power factor, hence to remain faithful
121
to the ruling authority was the only option. They were aware of the fact
that they could only practice their religious traditions and prosper by
allegiance to the ruling people and this basic attitude has been cautiously
portrayed by Sidhwa in all her novels; but in pre-partition days, they were
confused as to which side of the groups would ultimately emerge as the
ruler. Colonel Bharucha, silencing the acrimonious debate, rhetorically
remarks: “No one knows which way the wind will blow. . . .There may be
not one but two—or even three—new nations! And the Parsees might
find themselves championing the wrong side if they don’t look before
they leap!” (37) On the basis of religion, they were also confused as to
which community should they trust; a man inquires in impatient voice:
“If we’re stuck with the Hindus they’ll swipe our businesses from under
our noses and sell our grandfathers in the bargain: if we’re stuck with the
Muslims they’ll convert us by the sword! And God help us if we’re stuck
with the Sikhs!” (37) The portrayal of the Congress, the Muslim League,
Nehru, and Jinnah is a common mode found in the partition novels.
Demonstration of the dilemma of an uninvolved community is the
important feature of Ice-Candy-Man that makes it unique among other
books written about the cataclysm. Saros Cowasjee, poses a question
about “the emotional trauma of the religious minorities such as
Christians, Parsees and the Jews? Though uninfected by the communal
122
frenzy, these too were victims of the Partition of a country on a purely
religious basis” (38).
The first glimpse of the feeling of insecurity can be detected in the
Jashan prayer held at Lahore for celebration of British victory in the
Second World War; the peaceful routine of maintaining friendly terms
with, and regular holding of the parties for the British Superintendent of
Police by Mrs. and Mr. Sethi is also symbolic, and justifies the matter. R.
S. Pathak, in this connection, observes:
. . .Most of the Parsees thought that if the government and
the country were in the hands of the Hindus, the Parsees
would be pushed to the wall: their rights would not be
respected and their monopoly in business would crumble
. . .The Parsees were particularly disturbed by increasing
radicalism of the national movement strongly influenced by
the neo-Hindu renaissance. They felt that they had very
limited access to the socio-religious nationalism of the
Congress movement under Tilak and Gandhi. These fears
encouraged the Parsees to oppose even the concept of the
Home Rule in India. (128-129)
Thus, Col. Bharucha advises to maintain the status quo and
perpetuate the old attitudes: “Let whoever wishes rule! Hindu, Muslim,
Sikh, Christian! We will abide by the rules of their land!” (Ice-Candy-
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Man 39) At this juncture, Parsis seem to be the captive of the time as they
are forced to spend their lives in a society, which they are not members
of, and in which they are under such circumstances wherefrom escape is
impossible. Sidhwa gives the message that Parsis have played an
important part in the pre-partition society, and have contributed well in
strengthening the social fabric, even in the critical time of division.
Though, Parsis had been almost neutral in politics, communal
discord, riots, arson, and other horrific events, yet it would be unfair to
set aside their role in the politics of the subcontinent; Nani A. Palkhiwala
applauds and recognizes their contribution: “History affords no parallel to
the role of Parsis in India. There is no record of any other community so
infinitesimally small as Parsis, playing such a significant role in the life
of a country so large” (317). Most of the Parsis considered politics
mundane and gross, but a few of them got an honourable place in the
society and politics; Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917), Sir Pherozeshah M.
Mehta (1845-1915), and Sir Dinshaw Edulji Wacha (1844-1936) were the
top class Parsis of the time; praising the trio, Jeejeebhoy states:
“Following the death of withdrawal of these three politicians, no Parsees
ever again had a comparable influence on Indian politics” (Quoted in
Kulke 213). There have been some Parsis who participated in politics,
and became famous therein and society as well; J. N. Tata, K. N. Kabraji,
Behramji Malabari, and Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy were the prominent names in
124
the history of politics; on the basis of participation, Naoroji Furdoonjee,
Khursetjee Rustomjee Cama, Sohrabjee Shapurjee Bengalee, Maneckjee
Cursetjee, and Dosabhoy Framjee Karaka are worth mentioning; Wacha,
the General Secretary of the Congress, was a great social reformer;
Naoroji, Mancherji Bhavanagari and Shapurjee Saklatvala have got the
credit of being the first Indians as well as Parsis to have been elected to
the British Parliament. Parsis were not only good politicians but they had
also been social reformers; their contribution in the public welfare had
been so much so that they were rewarded with the posts of the General
Secretary, British Parliament’s membership, reputed orator, etc. R. S.
Pathak aptly remarks while applauding the Parsi politicians and socialists:
Feroze Gandhi and Taleyarkhan were great parliamentarians.
Among later politicians also some Parsees emerged as
important leaders. When the All India Congress Socialist
Party was initiated (though still within the Indian National
Congress) in Bombay in 1934, the inner circle of its founders
included. . .two Parsis—Minoo R. Masani and S. S.
Batlivala. Batlivala soon changed over to the Communist
Party of India, but Masani became the General Secretary of
the Congress Socialist Party in 1936. He played a leading
role in the founding of the Swatantra Party in 1959 and
served as its General Secretary for years. (128)
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Morris Jones adjudged Minoo R. Masani as “India’s most modernistic
politician” (156).
Sidhwa makes use of the literary devices like parody, allegory, and
comedy to depict the perils of compromising with religious obscurantism
when it leaves its impact on the historical processes; she also portrays
how the communal hysteria was responsible for the riots occurred on the
historic eve of partition, and its after-effects i.e. dislocation, loot, rape,
murder, molestation, and arson, as Novy Kapadia observes:
With a sprinkling of humour, parody and allegory Bapsi
Sidhwa conveys a sinister warning of the dangers of
compromising with religious obscurantism and
fundamentalism of all categories. Otherwise a certain
historical inevitability marks this historical process. Though
her novel is about the traumas of partition, Bapsi Sidhwa like
Amitav Ghosh reveals that communal riots are
contemporaneous and that those who do not learn from
history are condemned to repeat it. (90)
The precocious Parsi-girl-narrator is employed as a tool in the
novel; she observes, with the wonder of a child-view, the change in
milieu and human behaviour, noting and absorbing side-issues, seeking
and listening to opinions, and sporadically making judgments:
126
The device of the child narrator enables Bapsi Sidhwa treat a
historical moment as horrifying as Partition without
morbidity, pedanticism or censure. The highlight of the
novel is that the author throughout maintains a masterful
balance between laughter and despair. The subtle irony and
the deft usage of language create humour which does not
shroud but raucously highlights the traumas of Partition.
(Kapadia 77)
Partition and the riots occurred during it are the juncture of the
novel; Parsis as well as people of other religions get terrified by the brutal
scenes; the violence occurred after the declaration of Master Tara Singh
that Sikhs would not allow the creation of Pakistan sets Lenny and Shanta
to trembling; safe and sheltered on the roof of Fallettis Hotel they watch
brutality:
A naked child, twitching on a spear struck between her
shoulders, is waved like a flag: her screamless mouth agape
she is staring straight up at me. A crimson fury blinds me. I
want to dive into the bestial creature clawing entrails,
plucking eyes, tearing limbs, gouging hearts, smashing
brains: but the creature has too many stony hearts, too many
sightless eyes, deaf ears, mindless brains and tons of
entwined entrails. . . (Ice-Candy-Man 134-135)
127
The terror generated by the brutal acts of crowd is palpable in this
trembling scene; the dreadful procession of mob flows like a sluggish
watercourse in the veins of the readers, and the characters of the novel, which trembles them like an evil; Lenny, the child, is severely affected by
the calamity: “The whole world is burning. The air on my face is so hot I
think my flesh and clothes will catch fire. I start screaming: hysterically
sobbing” (Ice-Candy-Man 137); the violent scenes, arson, loot, rape,
murder, and above all the hatred amongst the friends leave their
frightening impact on the innocent mind of the child. Trembling scenes
are etched on heart of Lenny; the fire itself could not have survived for
months but in her reminiscence it is “branded over an inordinate length of
time” (139). Her rage, as a reaction against the riots, is seen at her
collection of dolls when she tries to re-enact the scene, with one of them:
“I pick out a big, bloated celluloid doll. I turn it upside down and pull its
legs apart. The elastic that holds them together stretches easily. I let one
leg go and it snaps back, attaching itself to the brittle torso” (138); she
does not get satisfied until his brother Adi does not help her in wrenching
out the legs of the doll; Novy Kapadia rightly comments in this
connection:
Lenny’s tears at this juncture indicate her refusal to accept
the inevitable demands of cruelty. Her reaction is positive as
it indicates an instinctive revulsion at her brutality and
128
destruction of her doll. The girl child narrator thus implies
that a sensitive reappraisal and rethinking is required to resist
the dangers of communal frenzy. So, Lenny thus upholds
positive and progressive values. (120)
The violent act is a clear allegory on the disaster; with a strong
sense of humour, Sidhwa tries to show that how deeply such acts can
affect a child’s psyche, and how such fantasy turns into a brutal violence:
“a sombre message by the novelist that unless there is re-thinking,
brutality and insensitivity becomes a way of life, such is the conditioning
of communalism” (Gaur 83).
The same technique is put to use by Attia Hosain in her novel,
Sunlight on a Broken Column, in which narrator-heroine akin to Lenny is
used; heroine Laila reveals the pain of partition through sensitivity and
memories of her Taluqdar family; likewise, in Ice-Candy-Man, the
enigma of partition is shown with Lenny’s awareness. Having wedded in
Pakistan, Laila’s cousin, Zebra, returns to Hasanpur and she quarrels with
him: “In the end, inevitably we quarrelled, and though we made up before
we parted I realized that the ties which had kept families together for
centuries had been loosened beyond repair” (Hosain 303); similarly, Laila
is also nostalgic and restless like Lenny; Laila’s viewpoint gets enlarged
after she has seen the partition upheaval, which enables her to recover
from the pain of death of her husband and trauma of partition as well, as
129
Kapadia writes about Lenny: “The precocious girl-child narrator in Ice-
Candy-Man provides a new perspective on the traumas of Independence
and Partition. Her astute and instinctive observations are often an apt
parody of the adult world of poses and rigid stances” (122). Thus, both
the heroines react against the communal rifts and the horrors of violence;
wrenching out the legs of doll by Lenny, and Laila’s quarrelling with her
brother, both these acts are allegorical reactions to the violent acts of the
historical divide; through this allegory, Sidhwa conveys the message that
there are no winners in the communal discords; instead, all people and
even the children get negatively affected by such horrific and divisive
events. The melodious song of Nur Jahan’s popular film is very apt to
make the message clear: “Mere bachpan ke sathi mujhe bhool na jana—
Dekho, dekho hense na zamana, hanse na zamana” (Ice-Candy-Man
159); unfortunately, the sense of the song is not followed, and Britishers
play a divisive role in parting the inhabitants of the nation.
Chapter eight of the novel unfolds the contemporary political
situation through the scene of bickering amongst the characters; Mr.
Singh and his American wife, Inspector General of Police, Mr. Rogers
and his wife Mrs. Rogers are the guests for dinner at Lenny’s house. Mr.
Singh shouts arguing with the Inspector General of Police: “I am up to
ruling you and your Empire! You recruit all our Sikh soldiers into your
World War Number Two and we win the war for you! Whyfore then you
130
think we cannot do Home Rule?” (Ice-Candy-Man 61) Mr. Rogers abuses
Gandhi, calling him old bugger who is up to his old bag of tricks; through
the quarrel, Sidhwa underlines the role of Britishers in the partition; when
Mr. Singh asks, if Gandhiji dies of fast, his blood will be on Britishers’
head, and in such situation what they will do? Inspector General of Police
replies that he would celebrate and having lost his patience cries almost
as loudly as Mr. Singh: “Rivers of blood will flow all right!’. . .‘Nehru
and the Congress will not have everything their way! They will have to
reckon with the Muslim League and Jinnah. If we quit India today, old
chap, you’ll bloody fall at each other’s throats!” (62); Justifying their role
Mr. Singh answers: “They are only saying that to be in a better bargaining
position and you are stringing them along because of your divide-and-rule
monkey tricks!’. . .‘You always set one up against the other. . .You just
give Home Rule and see. We will settle our differences and everything!”
(63) Mr. Singh could not tolerate this and grabs Mr. Roger; he tries to
attack Roger with a fork, though, the commotion subsides soon. English
people are also held responsible for the partition nation; they played a
significant role in dividing India, as the Government House gardener
says, “It is the English’s mischief. . .They are past masters at intrigue. It
suits them to have us all fight” (92); Mallikarjun Patil, in her article, has
presented the same point of view in connection with the role of British
Rulers in the divide: “Indeed, Lord Mountbatten implemented his plan of
131
partition and Gandhis and Nehrus nodded to it. But the fanatic Hindu-
Muslim misused the genesis of partition and saw that a river of blood
drained on either side” (72). Sidhwa, through the narrator, reveals the
dread of a child amidst the chaos of partition: “There is much disturbing
talk. India is going to be broken. Can one break a country? And what
happens if they break it where our house is? Or crack it further up on
Warris Road? How will I ever get to Godmother’s then?” (Ice-Candy-
Man 92) Lenny further exposes her fright: “They’ll dig a canal. . .’ she
ventures. ‘This side for Hindustan and this side for Pakistan. If they want
two countries, that’s what they’ll have to do—crack India with a long,
long canal.’ Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, Iqbal, Tara Singh, Mountbatten are
names I hear” (93).
History creeps into chapter ten; Gandhi is shown sitting cross-
legged on the marble floor of a palatial verandah surrounded by women;
he gives them enema himself, by treating them as their mother and to get
them recovered soon from the illness. Next chapter makes the readers
aware of the changing communal levels of the society; this subtle change
suddenly turns significant through the gatherings at the Queen’s Park:
‘Gandhiji, Nehru, Patel. . .they have much influence even in
London,’ says the gardener mysteriously, as if
acknowledging the arbitrary and mischievous nature of antic
132
gods. ‘They didn’t like the Muslim League’s victory in the
Punjab elections.’
‘The bastards!’ says Masseur with histrionic fury that
conceals a genuine bitterness. ‘So they sack Wavell Sahib, a
fair man! And send for a new Lat Sahib who will favour the
Hindus!’ (Ice-Candy-Man 90)
Jokes developed to ridicule other religions are becoming favourite,
and people are growing conscious of their own religious practices; Lenny
instinctively realizes the social divide between communities, as she says:
And I become aware of religious differences.
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 just my all-
encompassing Ayah—she is also a token. A Hindu. Carried
away by a renewed devotional fervour she expends a small
fortune in joss-sticks, flowers and sweets on the gods and
goddesses in the temples. (Ice-Candy-Man 93)
This is the consciousness growing in Lenny regarding social rift;
she protests Shanta’s acceptance for Masseur’s proposal for marriage;
this not only indicates towards a mature gaze-point of a child but also
reveals that the mind of a child gets so much deeply affected with the
riots and heinous crimes caused by the racial disunity that it develops
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within a short period, at the mere age of 8, and evaluates the events like
an adult. That’s why, Lenny prevents Shanta, a Hindu, to be wedded with
Masseur, a Muslim, for the ethnic differences are in full swing; in this
context, Novy Kapadia expresses admiration for Sidhwa:
The author cleverly delineates Lenny’s reactions to the
growing orthodoxy of the people around her. . .The Ayah
becomes a ‘token Hindu’ as with renewed devotional fervour
she offers ‘joss sticks, flowers and sweets’ to the gods and
goddesses in the temples. The Sharmas and Daulatrams
stress that they are Brahmins. The girl-child narrator sees
them as ‘dehumanised by their lofty caste and caste-marks
. . .The English Christians look down upon the Anglo-
Indians and the Anglo-Indian consider the Indian Christians
inferior. Lenny realises that her nuclear family and her
relatives have also been reduced to “irrelevant
nomenclatures—we are Parsee. (116)
On the Muslim side, Imam Din and Yousaf also turn into religious
zealots; they take Friday afternoons off for the Jumha (Friday) prayers:
On Fridays they set about preparing themselves
ostentatiously. . . .They wash their heads, arms, necks and
ears and noisily clear their throats and noses. . . .Sometimes,
at odd hours of the day, they spread their mats on the front
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lawn and pray when the muezzin calls. Crammed into a
narrow religious slot they too are diminished: as are Jinnah
and Iqbal, Ice-candy-man and Masseur. (Ice-Candy-Man 93)
Ice-candy-man blames the Hindus surveying the gardener’s face:
“but aren’t you Hindus expert at just this kind of thing? Twisting tails
behind the scene. . .and getting someone else to slaughter your goats?”
(Ice-Candy-Man 91) Most famous political figures of the time such as,
Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Iqbal, Patel, Bose, Lord Mountbatten, and Master
Tara Singh, etc. are described on various occasions in the book; the
Hindu leaders are presented in an unfavourable manner. Jinnah is
portrayed with sympathy and respect, while Gandhi is said to be a tricky
politician by Masseur, as the butcher abuses Gandhi: “That non-violent
violence-monger—your precious Gandhijee—first declares the Sikhs
fanatics! Now suddenly he says: “Oh dear, the poor Sikhs cannot live
with the Muslims if there is a Pakistan!” What does he think we are—
some kind of beast? Aren’t they living with us now?” (Ice-Candy-Man
91)
Chapter 17th of the novel records the birth of a new nation, and
British Rulers are held responsible for it; Radcliff Commission is shown
dealing out with Indian cities like a pack of cards; Lenny realizes: “I am
Pakistani. In a snap. Just like that. A new nation is born. India has been
divided after all. Did they dig the long, long canal. . .” (Ice-Candy-Man
135
140). Britishers, having achieved the objective to divide India, start
doling out favours to Indian political leaders represented by Nehru, as he
is young, charming, handsome, and close to Lord Mountbatten; in stark
contrast to Jinnah, who is austere, deathly ill, and incapable of cheek-
kissing; author highlights the biased role of the English (in Pakistani
context) in the partition:
For now the tide is turned—and the Hindus are being
favoured over the Muslims by the remnants of the Raj. Now
that its objective to divide India is achieved, the British
favour Nehru over Jinnah. Nehru is Kashmiri; they grant him
Kashmir. Spurning logic, defying rationale, ignoring the
consequence of bequeathing a Muslim state to the Hindus:
while Jinnah futilely protests: ‘Statesmen cannot eat their
words!’
Statesmen do.
They grant Nehru Gurdaspur and Pathankot, without which
Muslim Kashmir cannot be secured. (Ice-Candy-Man 159)
In Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-Man as well as in Chaman Nahal’ Azadi
Britishers are believed to have played a dividing role at the time of
independence:
. . .the partition of the country that brings about an
enervating change in the placid life of Lala Kanshi Ram. . . .
136
He is startled to know that he is a refugee in his ‘own home’
. . .he remembers the English people at the moment for their
deft handling of crises, he is critical of them for not ushering
in freedom smoothly and calls them ‘the real villains’ in the
drama of violence and destruction. . . . (Jha 41-42)
Sidhwa has portrayed Jinnah more sympathetically than the Hindu
political heavyweights; in this frame of reference, Randhir Pratap Singh
sharply comments: “. . .Ice-Candy-Man presents a Pakistani version of
Partition. Sidhwa’s Parsi faith keeps her out of the religious imbroglio of
Partition but as regards nationality, she is definitely a Pakistani and it
biases her in favour of Pakistan” (56).
Chapter twentieth displays a sordid account of the devastation
unleashed by partition; refugees flood newly born states; within three
months five million Hindus and Sikhs and seven million Muslims are
uprooted that records “the largest and most terrible exchange of
population known to history” (Ice-Candy-Man 159). Partition affected the
lives of people and shaped their future as well; in the tense communal
situation, people wanted to get their tools and weapons sharpened; Lenny
feels a perceptible behavioural-change in Shanta, Ice-candy-man, and
others. Ice-candy-man has attained “an unpleasant swagger and a strange
way of looking (154)” at Hindus; he is still full of stories, but unlike the
previous tales, new ones are of plunder and murder; he tells them that
137
with his Muslim counterparts, he has looted the house of Kirpa Ram, the
money-lender; he offers Shanta a looted gold-coin whereof she refuses to
accept. The growing tension among the people of different religion can
easily be felt here; plundering the Hindu families by Muslims and
Shanta’s refusal to accept the pillaged article from a Hindu house, both
these reactions display two different sides of the same coin; on Muslim’s
side, Ice-candy-man has changed himself and has no hesitation in killing
and looting, even those people (Hindus and Sikhs) whom he has known
all his life; while on the other side, Shanta, a Hindu, exhibits affectionate
attitude towards the people of her religion; that’s why, she declines to
accept a gold coin plundered from a Hindu house: “keep it. It’s for you”
(156). Jaya Lakshmi Rao notices the deadly impact of riotous divide on
Lenny, a Parsi girl and Shanta, a Hindu-maid, not only on the community
basis but also from the gender perspective:
. . .for Lenny, in a few years’ time a whole world, which is
also her world, undergoes a sea change marked by ‘blood
dimmed anarchy.’ Her focus, switches from her own ‘sense
of inadequacy and unworth’ and the ‘trivia and trappings’ of
her learning, to the world outside, which she finds, is dark
and dangerous. With greater perception, she notes the fast,
unstoppable and violent changes that leave her and those
138
around her, particularly Ayah ‘wounded in the soul.’ (Ice-
Candy-Man 185)
Similarly, in Chaman Nahal’s Azadi, Arun and Munir, very close
and devoted friends since the pre-partition time, too feel “a tension
towards each other” (Azadi 118) when the dividing line is stretched on
India’s soil.
The picture of the unity among villagers of Pir Pindo is drawn in
the pre-partition days; villagers blame the Britishers for growing discord
among the friends and neighbours; during a conversation, a village
mullah says, “I hear there is trouble in the cities. . .Hindus are being
murdered in the Bengal. . .Muslims, in Bihar. It’s strange. . .the English
Sarkar can’t seem to do anything about it” (Ice-Candy-Man 55). The
village Chaudhary (Headman) comments: “I don’t think it is because they
can’t. . .I think it is because the Sarkar doesn’t want to!” (55) Imam Din
informs the villagers that Hindu-Muslim trouble is spreading across the
cities of India and which might affect the rural areas also; upon which,
the Sikh granthi, being over-confident says, “our villages come from the
same racial stock. Muslim or Sikh, we are basically Jats. We are brothers.
How can we fight each other?” (56) About the unity of villagers,
chaudhary brags:
. . .I’m alert to what’s happening. . .I have a radio. But our
relationships with the Hindus are bound by strong ties. The
139
city folk can afford to fight. . .we can’t. We are dependent on
each other: bound by our toil; by Mandi prices set by the
Banyas—they’re our common enemy—those city Hindus.
To us villagers, what does it matter if a peasant is a Hindu,
or a Muslim, or a Sikh? (56)
Imam Din, having been satisfied with the logics, calms down and
responds: “I think you are right, brothers, the madness will not infect the
villages” (Ice-Candy-Man 56); at the end of the conversation, oaths are
taken to protect the neighbours of different religion, and it is regarded as
their duty; the unity at the rural level can be realized; it is also felt that at
that time of historical division, riots were basically the part of the cities,
not of the villages. Sidhwa has captured the impacts on the secularism
during the British Raj; the fright in the hearts of the people of villages,
which were not infected with the fanaticism yet, can be seen vividly. Like
Pir Pindo, in Sialkot, a small village depicted in Azadi; people listen to
the news of partition and suddenly become aware of their religions and
ethnic roots (be they Hindu or Muslim) of their relations to the majority
or minority communities:
In the Muslim-dominated city of Sialkot, which was until a
few days ago a picture of peace and amity and co-operation
among the Muslims and the Hindus and the Sikhs. . .the
division of the country on a blatantly communal basis does
140
bring about a psychological wedge, an emotional and
spiritual rift among the civil, police and military personnel of
undivided India. (Jha 37)
In this way, it is again the partition that vitiates the idyllic
tranquillity of Indian villages like Pir Pindo; partition has expanded the
thematic potentials of Ice-Candy-Man; at the same time, two broad
patterns of communal relations are discernible, as harmony as well as
discord among the villagers and city dwellers. It is Sidhwa’s deft
handling of the theme that both the patterns are historical, though the
climax is visionary: “Hindu-Muslim-Sikh characters who were jolly good
friends before turn into enemies, once the news of Partition of the country
is announced and implemented” (Rao 186).
Rumours are also used by Sidhwa as a device to carry out the
psychological impression of the calamity of partition on the life of
people. Not only adults but children were also hit badly, they fell under
the suspicion, doubt, and susceptibility to the rumours.
In Ice-Candy-Man while depicting political figures, Sidhwa is seen
like a Pakistani (opposing India) not a Parsi (neutral); she is felt taking
side of Jinnah regarding his role in religio-political activities occurred
during the partition. As a Pakistani, her sympathy is with Jinnah, the
founder of Pakistan (her own nation) and the leader of Muslims, not with
Gandhi (pertaining to India), a Hindu; in this context, her patriotism
141
exceeds on Zoroastrianism (well-known neutral view); with a totally
partial view, she disregards the importance of Gandhi through her
characters’ communication in the novel; digging the historical facts,
Sidhwa sings the praises of Jinnah, while pours scorn on M. K. Gandhi:
“And today, forty years later, in films of Gandhi’s and Mountbatten’s
lives, in books by British and Indian scholars, Jinnah, who for a decade
was known as ‘Ambassador of Hindu—Muslim Unity’, is caricatured,
and portrayed as a monster” (Ice-Candy-Man 160); author takes support
of Indian poetess Sarojini Naidu’s applauding statement about Jinnah to
pacify her own speech in the novel:
. . .the calm hauteur of his accustomed reserve masks, for
those who know him, a naïve and eager humanity, an
intuition quick and tender as a woman’s, a humour gay and
winning as a child’s—pre-eminently rational and practical,
discreet and dispassionate in his estimate and acceptance of
life, the obvious sanity and serenity of his worldly wisdom
effectually disguise a shy and splendid idealism which is of
the very essence of the man. (161)
It might be the quality of a native to prefer his or her own country
and people, not that of a writer’s; it would be considered as a fault of the
author. Sidhwa is politically and historically biased towards Gandhi and
Nehru; that’s because of her patriotic feelings; while, a writer should try
142
to remain unbiased and impartial, as Pooja Singhal rightly observes: “Ice-
Candy-Man is a politically motivated novel. One finds references to the
names of political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawahar Lal Nehru,
Lord Mountbatten, Subhash Chandra Bose and Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
Here Bapsi Sidhwa does not treat Gandhi as a saint but as a clever
politician. . .” (149).
On the religious level, Sidhwa has tried her best in showing a
balanced involvement of both Sikhs and Muslims in partition riots and
violence; the gunny-bags of Muslim women’s breasts in the train from
Gurdaspur, and the mass murder of Muslims in Pir Pindo are stark
portrayal of the atrocities perpetrated by Sikhs; on the other side of the
fence, abduction of Shanta, and murder of Masseur by Ice-candy-man and
his colleagues are the example of Muslim barbarity and abomination:
Ranna saw his uncles beheaded. His older brothers, his
cousins. The Sikhs were among them like hairy vengeful
demons, wielding bloodied swords, dragging them out as a
sprinkling of Hindus, darting about at the fringes, their faces
vaguely familiar, pointed out and identified the Mussulmans
by name. He felt a blow cleave the back of his head and the
warm flow of blood. Ranna fell just inside the door on a
tangled pile of unrecognisable bodies. Someone fell on him,
drenching him in blood. (Ice-Candy-Man 201)
143
A thrilling scene of Sikh rebels, moving in marauding bands of
forty thousand people like swarms of locusts, is presented; they are
shown killing all Muslims, setting fire, and looting their houses; the most
disgusting act of theirs is parading the Muslim women naked through
streets, rape and mutilation of the ladies in the open area of villages and
even in mosques:
The shouting and screaming from outside appeared to come
in waves: receding and approaching. From all directions.
Sometimes Ranna could make out the words and even whole
sentences. He heard a woman cry, ‘Do anything you want
with me, but torment me. . .For God’s sake, don’t torture
me!’ And then an intolerable screaming. ‘Oh God!’ a man
whispered on a sobbing intake of breath. ‘Oh God, she is the
mullah’s daughter!’ The men covered their ears—and the
boys’ ears—sobbing unaffectedly like little children” (Ice-
Candy-Man 200).
Sidhwa draws another terrible scene when the monsoon carries
hundreds of corpses; it exhibits on what large scale the slaughter was
carried out; the scene catches the turmoil of Indian subcontinent during
partition, and presents a lively glimpse into the events.
Sidhwa has suggested two types of victims of this historical divide;
the first are those who would prefer to be killed on their homeland instead
144
of being uprooted from their ancestral land; the second kind are those
millions of people, who, though, had driven away themselves from their
homeland, yet “to uproot themselves from the soil of their ancestors had
seemed to them akin to tearing themselves, like ancient trees, from the
earth” (Ice-Candy-Man 198). The previous kind of villagers are shown
making preparations, girls and women would burn themselves, young
men will engage the attackers in the fight and young boys will be locked
in secluded back rooms, hoping to escape from detection; the whole
context puts forth the deadly impact of the division; Rashmi Gaur in her
article “Treatment of Partition in Ice-Candy-Man” declares it a grim
historical reality, which not only stirred the soul of nation but also made
the internal structure of society fragile, as per her viewpoint, the novel:
. . .describes a society which has lost its courage, and
therefore only crumbles away. It not only presents the
barbaric details of atrocities perpetrated by one community
over other, but also delineates various manifestations of
pettiness and degenerated values which, like termite, had
hallowed the inner structural strength of the society. Ice-
Candy-Man narrates a society which has deflated chivalrous
attitudes, encourages petty self-serving tendencies and
indifferent tolerance of pogroms so long the self stays alive
with a whole skin; a society which was given what it
145
deserved—a sanguine and blood-curdling mindset, which
made Partition of India a grim reality. (45)
Lenny beholds a wound spot on the back of Ranna’s head; this
grisly scar that has acquired the shape of a four-day-old moon is the
symbol of brutality being meted out to Muslims. Though, everybody is
tortured and treated badly, yet women have been the worst sufferer of
partition; through this, Sidhwa presents a feminine gaze-point of the
divide. The narrator of the novel is a little Parsi girl suffering from polio
due to which her world is confined; her eighteen-year-old home-maid,
Shanta, is another victim of the calamity, who, despite having many
friends and admirers of all races and faiths, is kidnapped and raped; Ice-
candy-man, her great admirer, gets her abducted, and drags her into the
disgusting life of prostitution; the worst thing, of which she is shocked, is
that her friends and acquaintances, which she keeps united until the
communal lines get polarized, gratify their lust on her body; later on, Ice-
candy-man forces her to convert to Islam, and marries her forcibly but
she has no love for him at all. Hamida, portrayed like a starved and
grounded bird, is the third victim of men’s atrocity, and represents those
women who are abducted and raped, and then rejected by their families;
similar incident in Azadi occurs, when Suraj Prakash is killed and his
beloved Chandni is abducted by the Muslim marauders. In Cracking
India, Shanta’s lover is bumped off by Ice-candy-man; in Raj Gill’s The
146
Rape, Dalipjit’s beloved Leila, a Muslim girl, is raped by his father Ishar
Singh; in Ashes and Petals by H.S. Gill, Ajit is not granted permission to
marry a Muslim girl namely Salma; whatever be the reason, lovers,
pertaining to different religions, don’t get wedded: in Ice-Candy-Man,
Shanta or Ayah (a Hindu girl) gets her lover Masseur (a Muslim) dead in
a sack; in Azadi, Arun and Nur (Nurul Nisar), ardently in love, in spite of
their different religions, might have got married, but with the outbreak of
communal violence everything goes topsy-turvy. So, be the lover alive or
dead, it is in fact the religion that prevents them to go down the aisle with
each other; religion compels Ice-candy-man to bump Masseur off, and
this is again (in Azadi) the ethnic parity that separates Arun and Nur, and
above all, communal holocaust assigns the future of the characters.
During the riots, Ice-candy-man gets the chance of killing Masseur; with
rebels he abducts Shanta; due to the growing racial-rift, relationship of
Arun-Nur goes to an incomplete end; even, Shanta and Ice-candy-man’s
marital life, a one-sided love, comes to an end; when Ayah or Shanta is
sent to her parents across the Wagha border, Ice-candy-man too disappear
after her; here, the border is symbolic that refers to the partition; in fact,
the Radcliff line, whereof both the ones cross, shows that it is the drawn
line that has pulled both apart. Thus, in almost all the events, it is the
partition, somewhere in form of riots or communal violence, sometimes
in the guise of dislocation of the families, and in some incidents as arson,
147
loot, rape, murder, abducting, and proselytisation; means to say, almost at
every moment of the story, partition works as the shaping force of the
novel, and makes the whole body of the book. Not only border but the
story is also invested with symbolic mode; the saga of Shanta and Ice-
candy-man is also significant for the angle wherefrom it looks at the
partition: “. . .the Ice-candy-man is willing to leave the land, that he so
much cherishes, for the sake of his Hindu beloved, is not only an example
of self-sacrifice but also symbolic of a future rapprochement between the
two warring communities—the Muslims and Hindus” (Singh, Jagdev
175).
Shanta is appointed as a maid-servant to look after Lenny akin to
Padmini, a widow and charwoman, who works as a home-maid in several
households in Chaman Nahal’s Azadi,; if Shanta is shown a ‘dusky
beauty’, Padimini is a ‘faded beauty of a very delicate type’; this is also a
striking similarity in both the woman characters. The tearful sorrow of
such ladies evokes the grievous sense in the readers: “Sometimes her eyes
fill and the tears roll down her cheeks. Once, when I smoothed her hair
back, she suddenly started to weep, and noticing my consternation
explained: ‘When eye is wounded, even a scented breeze hurts” (Ice-
Candy-Man 193). Randhir Pratap Singh gives an apt observation:
Sidhwa’s portrayal of men as perpetrators of dreadful
outrage, and women as sufferers and saviours conforms to
148
her feminine perspective on Partition. Ice-Candy-Man, thus,
presents a fictional account of Partition from three
perspectives—Parsi, Pakistani and feminine, and therein lies
the uniqueness of this novel. (57)
Deirdre Donahue goes into raptures about the novel that “conveys
the human suffering of Partition far more effectively than a dozen history
books.” Shanta aka Mumtaz tries to seek refuge in her family after having
undergone the bitter experience at the hands of Ice-candy-man (her
husband); this is an act of a wife’s refusal to live with her cruel husband
when her prestige, as a woman, is at stake. Her bitter experience through
the zealotry and betrayal of her friend Ice-candy-man helps her learn that
social independence and freedom is essential for a woman to survive in
the so called moralistic society; the idea of freedom is strong in her; that’s
why, when Godmother ventures to divert her from her decision to go to
her parents, Shanta denies to go back to Ice-candy-man and accept him as
her husband. Though, Godmother argues that Shanta had married to Ice-
candy-man and he truly cares for her, she also questions that what if her
family would not accept her back, yet Shanta, rejecting all the arguments
made by Godmother, realizes herself, and comes to the conclusion:
“whether they want me or not, I will go” (Ice-Candy-Man 262); it
suggests that there can never be any forgiveness, never atonement for
such betrayal. The conversation between them discloses that Shanta is
149
self-willed now, and she is firmly decisive about ignoring the social codes
of conduct, limitation of a wife, and other persons including her parents:
Dormant possibilities of the resurgence of human spirit can
also be sensed in Ayah as, taking a bold decision, she
determines to go back to her family. She rejects the
constricting present and decisively wants to face future in all
its tentative probabilities. The resilience of women
characters saves the novel from being a heart-rending
depressing rendition of journalistic reporting. (Gaur 47)
At the same time, not only all the characters look realistic but the
scene of holocaust also seems to be drawn again before the eyes of
readers, which is a matter of the level of Sidhwa’s wherewithal:
Almost all the characters. . .are unpredictable. And they are
convincing as well. The change that the characters undergo
is natural and real. Ayah for instance, at the outset is just a
maid at the Sethi residence. She looks after infant Lenny. All
of a sudden she is swept off her cozy corner into a vortex of
political upheaval. She is forced to change from being an
ordinary domestic help to a public entertainer in a matter of
few months. What shocks and saddens the reader is, the
coarse treatment meted out to her for no faults of hers.
Here’s someone who was now secure, and in the next minute
150
rendered helpless. She becomes just a puppet in the hands of
a fate worse than death. She is just an example of the several
millions of displaced, looted and raped Hindus and Muslims
during one of the harshest political phases in the history of
the subcontinent. (Rao 186)
It is also interesting to show how he (Ice-candy-man) gets a sense
of guilt. This attitude, developed in Shanta, brought adverse effect on the
part of her husband; her return to her family is supposed to be the victory,
which highlights the failure of Ice-candy-man, and makes him depressed.
Sidhwa seems to convey a message through the conversation of
Godmother with Shanta, that one should fight the problems of life; the
only way to overcome the problems is to be bold and face the difficulty.
Author suggests, through the context when Shanta, now Mumtaz,
undergoes the mental and physical ordeal that even total despair can open
up a new spring of elemental self-confidence, which is the way to
ultimate liberation.
151
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