Ice-Candy
man -- a love story or a partition novel
The Iceman
speaketh?. I roam in the city as the Ice-Candy wallah, with an icebox of sweet
ice candies. Hounded by little children and their mothers, I bring a little
cool relief in the hot summer. The
business is good
when the day is hot, but I try to save a few for a sweet little child, who is
unfortunate to be afflicted by polio, but fortunate to have the lovely ayah. I
long for a sight of the ayah all day, I long for a few moments of flirtatious
fun, the sight of her draws my attention, like a fly drawn towards a lamp. She
is the apple of my eye, but she accepts the apple of another, I have a good
mind to massage his body to pulp, but alas he is my friend too. Everytime I see
her with him, the fire of jealousy burns higher within me. The anguish of
seeing her in his arms, wounds me more than any weapon the world can offer. A
lamp can set a palace ablaze, what is one man?s soul before the evil flames? In
my foolish rage I destroy the lives of those near and dear friends. I pluck the
most beautiful rose from God?s garden, tear its beautiful petals apart in my
rage, and I adorn it with fake appendages, believing it to be mine forever.
The ice candy man (icm) is shown in the novel as an extremely passionate character who tries to get the girl he wants by hook or by crook. The novel does not show the love of the icm till the end of the text, when we see the passion that he is capable of. We see the icm as a betrayer when he uses Lenny to betray Ayah to the mob. At this point, the reader would be shocked as the icm till then is shown as a nice person who has some feelings for Ayah. The murder of the Masseur and way his body was put in a gunny bag near Lenny?s house would now seem to be the icm?s deed. Later, in the novel, when Godmother discovers Ayah, and when the icm explains his deeds, one is able to empathise with him but not sympathise with him.
If the novel is a love story, then why is the narrator Lenny? If the narrator was the icm himself, then it would be a propaganda novel of the icm explaining his deeds and the reader would sympathise with him. One would see all the emotional turmoil the icm experiences, but the deeds of the icm are evil, and sympathizing with his deeds is not what the author wants the reader to do. So why not Ayah as the narrator? Ayah would be the other end of the spectrum, one who is unaware of the intensity of the love of the icm, who is raped and ravaged by the mob led by the icm. A narrative from Ayah?s perspective would inevitably make the novel totally anti-icm, which would then mask the icm?s perspective. So, why a child? An adult narrator would be influenced by the ethics and morals of the society, and also by his/her own biases. Also, an adult would probably have not observed the intimacy between Ayah and the Masseur, as the two would not have openly displayed it. Adults are more expressive and feel more secure about their privacy in the presence of a child than in the presence of other adults. A child?s narrative would be more objective than an adult?s without the biases of social and ethical order.
For example, if the narrator had been Lenny?s Godmother, it would have been heavily biased by the ethical disruption caused by the kidnapping of Ayah and the last chapter would not have revealed the intensity of emotions of the icm. The reader would be made to despise the icm for his deeds and his motivations would not have been revealed. There is a danger of choosing a child narrator. A child would not be able to fathom love and sexuality, as he/she would be naïve regarding these matters. In that light, a child narrator would not understand the emotions of the icm for Ayah, or the emotions of Ayah and the Masseur for eachother. The author solves this problem using Lenny?s cousin. Lenny learns about sexuality and the feelings of love from her cousin. Cousin, who is shown to be infatuated with Lenny from the start, helps Lenny understand the meaning of love and emotional turmoil that entails when love is not returned. He also shows Lenny how love can be very possessive. These lessons learnt by Lenny through her personal experiences with Cousin later helps her to empathise with the icm. I particularly liked this idea of the author very much. How is it a partition novel? The novel has the Partition of India in the background of the story. The partition also serves to give the icm a leeway for his heinous deeds.
The novel describes the horrors of the Partition very well and the reader is drawn into the tale. The fears, the insecurity, and the hatred that was bred in the people by the politicians of that time for their own vested interests is very caricatured in the novel. The changing loyalties of the circle of friends who in the end become fiends brings forth the true horror of Partition when friends became traitors. The description of the massacre of Ranna?s village shows how humans behaved like savages, killing their own countrymen. The icm?s sees a perfect opportunity to claim what he thinks is his. The Partition also psychologically affects the icm as his family is murdered brutally on the train. It turns him into a cruel person, he then joins in the fray and kills Hindus, some of them his friends. All in all the icm is very much affected by the Partition and he uses the violence as a machanism to claim Ayah but it backfires.
A sad tale of Partition is shown, where the crimes of the people killed the national spirit and no matter what was tried, it still remains as a deep scar on the psyche of the people. As Jinnah himself put it, ?Pakistan has been the biggest mistake of my life.? Partition of India is truly the sorest point in the sub-continent?s history, when a new nation was born amidst humungous turmoil and violence that later both countries have regretted and will do so for the rest of their existence. So will the icm regret his deeds for the rest of his miserable life.
The Ice Candy man shows us the naked human emotions that are revealed whenever passions run high and it also shows how they can be good and evil in the same person. The novel has a simple narrative, enhanced by the use of humour, which effectively tells us the story of the Ice candy man.
The ice candy man (icm) is shown in the novel as an extremely passionate character who tries to get the girl he wants by hook or by crook. The novel does not show the love of the icm till the end of the text, when we see the passion that he is capable of. We see the icm as a betrayer when he uses Lenny to betray Ayah to the mob. At this point, the reader would be shocked as the icm till then is shown as a nice person who has some feelings for Ayah. The murder of the Masseur and way his body was put in a gunny bag near Lenny?s house would now seem to be the icm?s deed. Later, in the novel, when Godmother discovers Ayah, and when the icm explains his deeds, one is able to empathise with him but not sympathise with him.
If the novel is a love story, then why is the narrator Lenny? If the narrator was the icm himself, then it would be a propaganda novel of the icm explaining his deeds and the reader would sympathise with him. One would see all the emotional turmoil the icm experiences, but the deeds of the icm are evil, and sympathizing with his deeds is not what the author wants the reader to do. So why not Ayah as the narrator? Ayah would be the other end of the spectrum, one who is unaware of the intensity of the love of the icm, who is raped and ravaged by the mob led by the icm. A narrative from Ayah?s perspective would inevitably make the novel totally anti-icm, which would then mask the icm?s perspective. So, why a child? An adult narrator would be influenced by the ethics and morals of the society, and also by his/her own biases. Also, an adult would probably have not observed the intimacy between Ayah and the Masseur, as the two would not have openly displayed it. Adults are more expressive and feel more secure about their privacy in the presence of a child than in the presence of other adults. A child?s narrative would be more objective than an adult?s without the biases of social and ethical order.
For example, if the narrator had been Lenny?s Godmother, it would have been heavily biased by the ethical disruption caused by the kidnapping of Ayah and the last chapter would not have revealed the intensity of emotions of the icm. The reader would be made to despise the icm for his deeds and his motivations would not have been revealed. There is a danger of choosing a child narrator. A child would not be able to fathom love and sexuality, as he/she would be naïve regarding these matters. In that light, a child narrator would not understand the emotions of the icm for Ayah, or the emotions of Ayah and the Masseur for eachother. The author solves this problem using Lenny?s cousin. Lenny learns about sexuality and the feelings of love from her cousin. Cousin, who is shown to be infatuated with Lenny from the start, helps Lenny understand the meaning of love and emotional turmoil that entails when love is not returned. He also shows Lenny how love can be very possessive. These lessons learnt by Lenny through her personal experiences with Cousin later helps her to empathise with the icm. I particularly liked this idea of the author very much. How is it a partition novel? The novel has the Partition of India in the background of the story. The partition also serves to give the icm a leeway for his heinous deeds.
The novel describes the horrors of the Partition very well and the reader is drawn into the tale. The fears, the insecurity, and the hatred that was bred in the people by the politicians of that time for their own vested interests is very caricatured in the novel. The changing loyalties of the circle of friends who in the end become fiends brings forth the true horror of Partition when friends became traitors. The description of the massacre of Ranna?s village shows how humans behaved like savages, killing their own countrymen. The icm?s sees a perfect opportunity to claim what he thinks is his. The Partition also psychologically affects the icm as his family is murdered brutally on the train. It turns him into a cruel person, he then joins in the fray and kills Hindus, some of them his friends. All in all the icm is very much affected by the Partition and he uses the violence as a machanism to claim Ayah but it backfires.
A sad tale of Partition is shown, where the crimes of the people killed the national spirit and no matter what was tried, it still remains as a deep scar on the psyche of the people. As Jinnah himself put it, ?Pakistan has been the biggest mistake of my life.? Partition of India is truly the sorest point in the sub-continent?s history, when a new nation was born amidst humungous turmoil and violence that later both countries have regretted and will do so for the rest of their existence. So will the icm regret his deeds for the rest of his miserable life.
The Ice Candy man shows us the naked human emotions that are revealed whenever passions run high and it also shows how they can be good and evil in the same person. The novel has a simple narrative, enhanced by the use of humour, which effectively tells us the story of the Ice candy man.
Review:
"Bapsi Sidhwa has turned her gaze upon the domestic comedy of a Pakistani family in the 1940s and somehow managed to evoke the great political upheavals of the age ... and I am particularly touched by the way she has held the wicked world up to the mirror of a young girl's mind and caught so much that is lyrical and significant ... a mysterious and wonderful novel." Richard Ryan in Washington Post
"Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice-Candy-Man is like foraging through a tableful of discounted Swatch watches, and finding a gold Rolex......it illustrates the power of good fiction: a historical tragedy comes alive, yielding insight into both the past and the subcontinent's turbulent present." Deidre Donahue in USA Today
"Bapsi Sidhwa has turned her gaze upon the domestic comedy of a Pakistani family in the 1940s and somehow managed to evoke the great political upheavals of the age ... and I am particularly touched by the way she has held the wicked world up to the mirror of a young girl's mind and caught so much that is lyrical and significant ... a mysterious and wonderful novel." Richard Ryan in Washington Post
"Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice-Candy-Man is like foraging through a tableful of discounted Swatch watches, and finding a gold Rolex......it illustrates the power of good fiction: a historical tragedy comes alive, yielding insight into both the past and the subcontinent's turbulent present." Deidre Donahue in USA Today
Throughout,
the novel sustains the vitality of Lenny's world with a series of wonderfully
comic scenes. Highly recommended for all libraries." J. Sudrann in Library
Journal.
"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." The Oxford Companion To
Twentieth-Century Literature in English
"The novel is about the slow awaking of the child heroine both to sexuality and grown-up pains and pleasures and to the particular historical disaster that overwhelm her world... compulsively readable." Observer
"Ice-Candy-Man deserves to be ranked as amongst the most authentic and best on the partition of India ... Sidhwa has blossomed into Pakistani's best writer of fiction in English." Khushwant Singh, The Tribune
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." Anita Desai in Dawn
"The novel is about the slow awaking of the child heroine both to sexuality and grown-up pains and pleasures and to the particular historical disaster that overwhelm her world... compulsively readable." Observer
"Ice-Candy-Man deserves to be ranked as amongst the most authentic and best on the partition of India ... Sidhwa has blossomed into Pakistani's best writer of fiction in English." Khushwant Singh, The Tribune
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." Anita Desai in Dawn
Book Summary of Ice Candy Man
Now Filmed as 1947, a motion picture by Deepa Mehta Few novels
have caught the turmoil of the Indian subcontinent during Partition with such
immediacy, such wit and tragic power. Bapsi Sidhwa s lce-Candy Man is an
intimate glimpse into events as they tear apart the world of Lenny, a young
Parsee girl growing up in the pungent, busybodying city of Lahore. Ice-Candy
Man deserves to be ranked amongst the most authentic and best [books] on the
partition of India. Khushwant Singh Bapsi Sidhwa s capacity for bringing an
assortment of characters vividly to life is enviable. She has given us in
Ice-Candy Man a memorable book, one that confirms her reputation as Pakistan s
finest English language novelist. The New York Times Book Review [Sidhwa] has
told a sweet and amusing tale filled with the worst atrocities imaginable; she
has concocted a girlishly romantic love story which is driven by the most
militant feminism; above all, she has turned her gaze upon the domestic comedy
of a Pakistani family in the 1940s and somehow managed to evoke the great
political upheavals of the age. The Washington Post
Book Reviews of Ice Candy Man
The
Dlectics of the Minorities
Review by Dr V. Pala Prasa Rao, JKC College,
Guntur
Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Ice-Candy Man
recaptures the ominous reverberations of the traumatic experience of partition
after forty years. She presents a brilliant close-up of communal violence
during the times of partition and the aftermath of it which tore apart the
world of Lenny, a young Parsee girl growing up in the city of Lahore. She
slowly awakened to the historical disaster and gained ‘poisonous insight’ as
the multi-religious throng of her beautiful ayah’s (mid servant) admirers began
to indulge in internecine quarrels with regard to issues related to partition.
Ice-Candy Man is a penetrative study of minority complex- “the fear of being deprived, surpassed, losing out, threatened, dominated, suppressed, beaten down, exterminated and of losing one’s identity and even life”1. All the minorities dreaded that they would be hounded to death if Pakistan came into a reality. The Parsis of Lahore were aware of the fact that in the surcharged atmosphere where passions bound to rule reason that their survival was under threat. They knew that they, owing to the vulnerability and the lack of numerical strength, could not afford fighting a pitched battle against any section of society. Nor could they cherish any fond hope of siding any party because there was possibility of “ not one but two-or three-new nations!”2. Col. Bharucha warned Parsis that should be very cautious lest they might find themselves championing the wrong side.
If we’re stuck with the Hindus, they’ll swipe
Our business from under our noses …….. If we’re
Stuck with Muslims they’ll convert us by the
sword! And God can help us if we’re stuck with
the Sikhs! (p-59)
The Parsis of Lahore were not’ stupid enough to court trouble’ by backing up any community because they have something against everybody. They would not like to take an active part in politics because they dreaded that by ‘Jumping into the middle’ they would be ‘mangled into chutney’. They knew that ‘it was not easy to be accepted into a country unless some ingenious norms for living with other communities were worked out.
Let whoever rule!. Hindu, Muslim, Sikh,
Christian!. We will abide by the rules of their Land, (p-39)
The success of Parsis lies in the fact that by evolving certain workable norms to live amiably with the majority, they tided over the problem of being driven out of Pakistan. They remained infact and prospered even under ‘Muslim Moguls’ simply because they continued to conduct their ‘lives quietly’ (p-127). As ‘a smart and civilized people’ they wanted to sweeten ‘to sweeten the lives’ of others. They did never engage themselves in proselytization; nor did they present ‘threat to anybody’. It was resolved to a man that Parsis should be neutral in the tug of war among the three major communities, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. The neutral attitude of the narrator character, Lenny had its roots in the racial psychology of the Parsis. Even the Parsis’ children, Lenny and Adi, taking the cue from their elders, shouted themselves hoarse crying, ‘Jai Hindu!. Or ‘Pakistan Zindabad!. Depending on the whim or the allegiance of the principal crier.
In the final analysis this policy turns out to be very beneficial. While the Parsis were in harmony with the Muslims, the other minorities, Hindus and Sikhs were uprooted from their homes and hearths and subjected to atrocities unimaginable.
The book is basically a cerebral study of the dynamics of minorities. 1947 figures prominently in the recent edition since the writer seeks to give an inkling about the work.
Ice-Candy Man is a penetrative study of minority complex- “the fear of being deprived, surpassed, losing out, threatened, dominated, suppressed, beaten down, exterminated and of losing one’s identity and even life”1. All the minorities dreaded that they would be hounded to death if Pakistan came into a reality. The Parsis of Lahore were aware of the fact that in the surcharged atmosphere where passions bound to rule reason that their survival was under threat. They knew that they, owing to the vulnerability and the lack of numerical strength, could not afford fighting a pitched battle against any section of society. Nor could they cherish any fond hope of siding any party because there was possibility of “ not one but two-or three-new nations!”2. Col. Bharucha warned Parsis that should be very cautious lest they might find themselves championing the wrong side.
If we’re stuck with the Hindus, they’ll swipe
Our business from under our noses …….. If we’re
Stuck with Muslims they’ll convert us by the
sword! And God can help us if we’re stuck with
the Sikhs! (p-59)
The Parsis of Lahore were not’ stupid enough to court trouble’ by backing up any community because they have something against everybody. They would not like to take an active part in politics because they dreaded that by ‘Jumping into the middle’ they would be ‘mangled into chutney’. They knew that ‘it was not easy to be accepted into a country unless some ingenious norms for living with other communities were worked out.
Let whoever rule!. Hindu, Muslim, Sikh,
Christian!. We will abide by the rules of their Land, (p-39)
The success of Parsis lies in the fact that by evolving certain workable norms to live amiably with the majority, they tided over the problem of being driven out of Pakistan. They remained infact and prospered even under ‘Muslim Moguls’ simply because they continued to conduct their ‘lives quietly’ (p-127). As ‘a smart and civilized people’ they wanted to sweeten ‘to sweeten the lives’ of others. They did never engage themselves in proselytization; nor did they present ‘threat to anybody’. It was resolved to a man that Parsis should be neutral in the tug of war among the three major communities, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. The neutral attitude of the narrator character, Lenny had its roots in the racial psychology of the Parsis. Even the Parsis’ children, Lenny and Adi, taking the cue from their elders, shouted themselves hoarse crying, ‘Jai Hindu!. Or ‘Pakistan Zindabad!. Depending on the whim or the allegiance of the principal crier.
In the final analysis this policy turns out to be very beneficial. While the Parsis were in harmony with the Muslims, the other minorities, Hindus and Sikhs were uprooted from their homes and hearths and subjected to atrocities unimaginable.
The book is basically a cerebral study of the dynamics of minorities. 1947 figures prominently in the recent edition since the writer seeks to give an inkling about the work.
One of
the most symbolistic novels on partition
No comments:
Post a Comment