Bapsi Sidhwa

Bapsi Sidhwa

Bapsi Sidhwa (Urdu: بیپسی سدھوا; 11; August 1938 in Karachi - 25 December 2024 in Houston, USA) was a Pakistani novelist who wrote in English.

Quotes

  • My world is compressed. Warris Road, lined with rain gutters, lies between Queens Road and Jail Road: both wide, clean, orderly, streets at the affluent fringes of Lahore.
  • What is happening with the Talibanization is really frightening [in the FATA and NWFP] – it’s scary because the brunt seems to fall on the women. When people talk of religion they often think in terms of “a woman shouldn’t do this or shouldn’t do that.” It’s not only Islam or in Islamic countries – in America the issue becomes the “woman doesn’t have right over her body,” etc. And in Pakistan, we go through a cycle of hope and despair. Right now we are in a place where we don’t know where we are headed…
  • [about the Partition of India] The roar of the mobs appeared to be a constant in my life; even as a 7 year old I knew it was an evil that threatened our lives. I couldn’t make out the words although I vaguely realized they were shouting religious slogans as they set fire to houses and harmed people. The memory of smoke and fire and fear and the sudden appearance of hoards of bedraggled refugees in my neighborhood are still vivid.
  • Writer’s narratives are woven into the fabric of life and history – it makes people aware of where they stand in relation to each other and the rest of the world. The word, as we understand it, may mutate, but it will always count. 
  • Basically where you come from in your writing is what you have experienced yourself, have internally absorbed as part of your adventure of life and I think that’s the best you can do… is writing about things that you know intimately. 
  • There is no comparison between what Partition was to what today is. Partition was a time of too much chaos. I am the only old woman in this room who remembers that time. I was seven or eight. And I remember the roar of the mob from a distance. I couldn’t make out the words. But later, I was able to decipher the “Hare Hare Maha Dev”, the “Allahu Akbar” and the “Sat Siriye Kaal”. Even back then, I could understand that they are killing each other. I knew it was evil. And there was no comparison to what’s happening today. 
  • You cannot write a non-political book anywhere in the world. Because politics colours each character’s way of thinking, way of relating to other people and so on. You see, each time there has been a regime change in Pakistan, I have felt myself changing. During the time of Bhutto, the women around us felt very energised. I was joining women’s committees, we were doing progressive things. And when Zia came, we sort of wilted and all the energy just drained away from us. Then Benazir came, and we all felt different. So it influenced us, as people, as characters. It influences how men look at us. You see? So the dynamics between people change. It’s all related to politics, to culture, to your environment. It all influences you. 
  • The Parsi community has been on the brink of extinction ever since I can remember, but it seems to be holding its own and still flourishing in Mumbai, Karachi, and recently in America and Britain. Of course, Parsi youth are marrying outside the community and many of the children born to these marriages are not accepted as Parsi, but this too is changing. I think this dodo bird of world religions will continue to exist -- at least I hope so!

Quotes about

  • Sidhwa's triumph lies in creating characters so rich in hilarious and accurate detail, so alive and active, that long after one has closed the book, they continue to perform their extraordinary and wonderful feats before our eyes.
  • One of the great comic novels of the 20th century
  • Bapsi Sidhwa's voice - comic, serious, subtle, always sprightly, is an important one to hear.
  • One of the finest responses made to the horror of the division of the subcontinent.
  • A ground-breaking writer, whose works have lost none of their freshness, humour or heart
    • Kamila Shamsite, used as blurb for Ice-Candy Man
  • Bapsi Sidhwa has blossomed into Pakistan's best writer of fiction in English...Cracking India deserves to be ranked as amongst the most authentic and best on the partition of India."
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