Ms. Bapsi Sidhwa – The CAP Podcast #34

Ms. Bapsi Sidhwa is a renowned writer. She was graced with the highest national honor in the arts, the Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 1991 by the Government of Pakistan. In conversation with The Citizens Archive of Pakistan, she reminisced about her early years in Lahore before Partition, her first novel, The Crow Eaters and her interaction with Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

Bapsi Sidhwa (Urdu: باپسا سادہوا‎; born August 11, 1938) is a Pakistani novelist who writes in English and is resident in America.

She is best known for her collaborative work with Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta: Sidhwa wrote both the 1991 novel Ice Candy Man which served as the basis for Mehta's 1998 film Earth as well as the 2006 novel Water: A Novelwhich is based upon Mehta's 2005 film Water.

Background

Sidhwa was born to Parsi Zoroastrian parents Peshotan and Tehmina Bhandara in Karachi and later moved with her family to Lahore. She was two when she contracted polio (which has affected her throughout her life) and nine in 1947 at the time of Partition (facts which would shape the character Lenny in her novel Ice Candy Man as well as the background for her novel). She received her BA from Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore in 1957.

She married at the age of 19 and moved to Bombay for five years before she divorced and remarried in Lahore with her present husband Noshir who is also Zoroastrian. She had three children in Pakistan before beginning her career as an author. One of her children is Mohur Sidhwa, who is a candidate for state representative in Arizona.

She currently resides in Houston, US. She describes herself as a "Punjabi-Parsi-Pakistani".


In an online interview to her Pakistani friend, Sadia Rehman, in August 2012 she said, "Feroza is closest to me and my views" about the identity issues of Pakistani Parsi immigrants to the US, their life-styles and their culture.

Teaching

She has previously taught at the University of Houston, Rice University, Columbia University, Mount Holyoke College, and Brandeis University.

Awards

• Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe/Harvard (1986)


• Visiting Scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation Center, Bellagio, Italy, (1991)


• Sitara-i-Imtiaz, (1991, Pakistan's highest national honor in the arts)


• Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award (1994)


• Premio Mondello for Foreign Authors for Water (2007)


• Inducted in the Zoroastrian Hall of Fame (2000)

Works

• Their Language of Love : published by Readings Lahore (2013, Pakistan.)


• Jungle Wala Sahib (Translation) (Urdu) : Published by Readings Lahore (2012, Pakistan)


• City of Sin and Splendour : Writings on Lahore (2006, US)


• Water: A Novel (2006, US and Canada)


• Bapsi Sidhwa Omnibus (2001, Pakistan)


• An American Brat (1993, U.S.; 1995, India)


• Cracking India (1991, U.S.; 1992, India; originally published as Ice Candy Man, 1988, England)


• The Bride (1982, England; 1983;1984, India; published as The Pakistani Bride, 1990 US and 2008 US)


• The Crow Eaters (1978, Pakistan; 1979 &1981, India; 1980, England; 1982, US)