[In the following interview, Sidhwa discusses the autobiographical elements of her fiction, her role as a postcolonial female author, her identity as a member of the Parsi community, and the use of humor in her novels.]

Bapsi Sidhwa is a well known writer from Pakistan whose fiction has won fame both at home and abroad for the sensitivity with which it depicts the people and places of the South Asian sub-continent. The Bride (1983), The Crow Eaters (1982), Cracking India (1991) and An American Brat (1993) are stylistically dexterous, and so liberally laced with humor that reading them is both a pleasurable experience as well as conducive to an insight into the complexities of life in the subcontinent. For although Sidhwa sees herself as a subcontinent writer, she is a Parsi who has lived many years in Pakistan. This gives her voice a distinctive edge, and makes her one of the best known of the Zoroastrian writers of today. The Zoroastrians or Parsis are a small community of less than one million comprised of the followers of the ancient religion of Iran, Zoroastrianism. Early Zoroastrians left Iran for South Asia after the Muslim conquest of Iran in the seventh century. Long concentrated in Bombay and other areas on the northwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent, today they are spread all over the world. There are a remarkable number of good Zoroastrian writers from India, Pakistan and South Africa now resident in the United States, Canada and Britain. Their experience of double migration gives them a unique perspective on their home countries as well as on the countries of their adoption.

[Singh]: You have four novels to your credit, each four or five years apart. Would you say that each relates to your own experience? Do they correspond to any phases in your life?

[Sidhwa]: Well, let us put it this way, there is in each character of The Bride (which though published after The Crow Eaters was actually written first)—in Zaitoun the heroine, in the relationship between Carol and her husband, and other relationships in the novel—some aspects of my own life. My growing up is partially reflected in Zaitoun's growing up. But there is very little of the real me in Zaitoun. Her character called for an act of imagination. I did not know enough about Kohistani and Pathan cultures. I had to read a lot and to create a lot. I heard the story of a runaway bride in Kohistan, a wild, unadministered mountainous area in Northern Pakistan but I knew nothing of her background, where she came from, who her parents were, how she met the tribal etc. All these I had to create.

The Crow Eaters also has many extremely imaginative portions. There are bits and pieces of community lore. But some of the characters are based on people I know—a certain gentleman or a certain lady! The parents in this novel, for instance, are certainly based on my own parents, with little bits and pieces of detail taken directly from my mother's conversation. However, the subject matter of this novel is totally fictional. I myself am very little in this book.

But in Ice-Candy-Man or Cracking India, the first part is autobiographical, except that the central character of the child is not me per se. I had to create some distance between the child Lenny and myself as a child. Otherwise I would not have been able to write so freely. I made her a much more defiant and feisty child. Also, this child is informed by my adult consciousness. So a lot of me is there, but other bits are purely imaginative. For instance, the relationship between Lenny and her male cousin—I had no such male cousin! I had no such Ayah either. But we did have servants like Imam Din and Yusuf. So partially I took things directly from my own experience, but the rest is created.

In An American Brat there are many experiences that me and my family actually went through personally or heard about after migrating to the United States. Otherwise I would not have dared to write about America. Most other writers who have come here from the subcontinent have not taken that step yet.

In retrospect, I am not sure it was such a good idea to attempt to create so many American characters in An American Brat. But I wanted to do it. I didn't want to sit in America and write only about the expatriate community here, or about the community I left behind. I could have done that even in Pakistan. I am having new experiences here everyday, and they need to be incorporated in fiction. There is a great dearth of candid writing about our expatriate community here and its experiences with the mainstream American community. So far only Bharati Mukherjee has attempted to write on this theme and has done a good job. But even she has created few American characters. This is not easy to do. I have been here only a few years and don't know American culture very well. Trying to interpret it can be quite dangerous. But American readers have, on the whole, appreciated my attempts, and found my observations about America revealing.

Some Indian reviewers, however, have been somewhat offended by the book, and I am not very sure why. Maybe the current antagonisms between the two countries and my Pakistani origins have contributed to this hostility. I was a bit disappointed by this, because I feel myself part of the subcontinent. I don't feel myself “other” from India. In fact, I have been an Indian citizen also.

Would you say, then, that the Pakistani reaction to An American Brat was more positive?

Yes, it was much warmer, though somewhat apologetic. But the Indians in America have loved it. The whole South Asian expatriate community has loved it.

What do you think is the role of fiction in today's world for a post-colonial writer such as yourself? I ask this question specially in the context of Ice-Candy-Man and in the interpretation of recent history. Did you see yourself as consciously trying to interpret the way things happened at the time of Partition?

Yes. My intention was to write about Partition because very little had been written about it. There are certain images from my past which have always haunted me. Partition was a very violent experience for everybody in the Punjab. Although I was very young then, I saw chance killings, fires, dead bodies. These are images which have stayed with me. There were also the stories I grew up with. There was a certain sadness in them.

Also, there was, in those days, such a strong sense of hostility between the two communities. I thought that, over a period of time, the two communities would forget this hostility and heal themselves. But that has not been the case, neither in Pakistan nor in India, nor even in Bangladesh. This hostility has to be dealt with. It seems that it is part of human nature to want to fight with somebody. If we can't fight with someone else, we fight amongst ourselves. In Pakistan, for instance, the shias fight the sunnis. This may be merely because there is not a large enough minority community to fight against.

Would you say that your novel was an exercise in bridge-building?

Not really. Bridge-building only to the extent that in all such situations innocent people get involved in turmoil created mainly by politicians. I wanted to show how people should not get carried away by political rhetoric and the promises politicians make. Part of my title Ice-Candy-Man did reflect on ice candy men, i.e., manipulative politicians who hold out false candies to people.

Can you comment on the changed title of this novel in the American edition? I take it that Cracking India was not your choice?

No, it was not my choice. It has, in fact, suggested a shift in focus. I felt that the ice candy man was a pivotal character in the book, and the earlier title gave him the weight I felt he should be given. He represents so many of the themes in the novel, and continuity is supplied by Lenny the narrator. But I have to say that many readers in India felt that Cracking India was a better title. American readers certainly believe it to be more appropriate. My publisher pointed out that an ice candy man would mean nothing to American readers. With Cracking India as the title, at least those interested in reading about India would pick up the book from the shelves.

So it was a question more of selling the book than anything else?

Yes. One could say that. But I do not think that the changed title makes any difference to the reading of the book. Those who have read it have liked it, despite the changed title.

The label “post-colonial” is much in currency these days. Do you describe yourself as a post-colonial writer?

(Laughs) Yes, I have heard this phrase often. In fact, it has been cited to death. But I still do not know what it means. Do I become “post-colonial” because I am writing after India and Pakistan achieved freedom? The fact is that, as a child, I never considered myself governed by anybody but our own people. I never had that sense. To me the British Raj was already a thing of the past, and today there is no visible legacy of it (as in monuments or statues) left in Pakistan. If a stranger came to Pakistan he would see nothing that would remind him that the British once ruled in Pakistan. So this is one part of our history which does not mean all that much to me. Maybe this is because I have no memory of it, have read little about it. My experiences are mine, and have not much to do with being “post-colonial” or otherwise. I write about my experiences in my particular part of the world.

So you think this is mainly a label coined by critics, and doesn't quite apply to your being a writer.

Absolutely. If it means a lot to critics, it is fine by me. I don't object to it. But I do feel that as a writer such labels put you into very strange slots. There are so many writers who wrote during British rule but did not say very much about the Raj. For instance, there is Ismat Chugtai, and even Khushwant Singh. Their writings, before and after Partition, form one seamless whole. The reality of India and Pakistan does not suddenly become different for them. It remains the same.

I suppose one of the questions the term “post-colonial” raises is the question of English as a language. Do you write only in English?

Yes.

When you write only in English who do you assume will be your reader? Whom do you consciously or unconsciously think you are addressing?

Definitely, the choice of the language you write in influences your material. When I first began writing I never really thought about my work being published. But subconsciously I must have assumed that I would be read by those who knew the language. So you could say that I always kept in mind the English knowing readers of India and Pakistan. And then, of course, the English speaking western reader in the UK, the USA, and Canada. There is no doubt about the fact that I was nurtured on western writing in English, but I did not always know that the world is dominated by western culture, by the western point of view—the limiting circumstances of my life kept me unaware of all this, and much else also. In India and Pakistan many of us read Little Women and the works of P. G. Wodehouse and other British classics and these do affect our point of view to an extent. In this way, I suppose I would be a “post-colonial.” But the overlying influence in my fiction is, of course, provided by the immediate environment.

But the more important point in all this is that the western world does not know us. And many of us feel that it is time our voice was heard there, that our cultures should be seen by them. I have always been very conscious of this. Here we are, living in huge communities in hidden corners of the world. It is time that these were seen, understood and recognized for what they are. We may be living in other parts of the world worshipping other religions, but we also laugh, cry, and deal with similar issues, have the same notions, and live through similar turbulences.

The western world has become very callous about people from other cultures. For them we are faceless blobs. Westerners have stereotypical images about the Arabs, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Asian etc. It has become very easy to generalize about them, to condemn them. How easily people say that the Arab world is nasty, the Chinese are enemies etc. This becomes a way of annihilating them. And these days we do have weapons that can annihilate whole countries.

This frightens me. I see injustice happening everywhere because of the hegemony of the western world. One of the things a writer can do is speak of the humanity of our people, their poverty and their naiveté …

Naiveté … ?

Yes, naiveté. People in our part of the world—in fact in most of the Third World—are very naive.

You mean they need to be given a voice?

Yes, a voice and a face. It's very important to create images of them which are human.

Wouldn't you, then, count yourself as “post-colonial” in wanting to do this?

Well, if you want to put it this way. The trouble is I never understood what exactly is meant by “post-colonial.” But if this fits the label, it's fine by me!

My next question is: does not the language of English confine you to describing only the middle-class experience of the sub-continent? Do you feel that this imposes a certain strain, certain limitations on you?

I would say that it's not the language that limits me. It is my upbringing and the world in which I grew up which limits me. However, in The Bride I ventured to describe tribal life as well as lower middle class life in Punjab. What I mean by this is where the whole business of family life is given over to the zenana, to women and children and procreation, where the whole atmosphere is permeated by the smell of babies and urine, and where the men just come to eat and sleep and then step out again. This is not the middle-class world in which I grew up, but I wrote of it in The Bride. This world is present in The Ice-Candy-Man in the characters of the slave sister, Ayah and her admirers.

So these people would not be speaking in English?

Not really. But their speech carries the idiom and flavor of their native language in English. This comes to me naturally. I don't have to be deliberate about it.

I would like now to speak of An American Brat where you have tried to negotiate the distance between the First and Third worlds through the central character Feroza who comes to the USA to pursue higher studies. Does this indicate that the whole question of expatriation is going to be a serious concern in your future writing?

These days I am thinking more in terms of personal essays and articles. I am not in the mood for fiction just now. But, since I am living here, and so little is written about our expatriate communities in this country and their interaction with the mainstream, I do mean to focus on the subject and what it augurs for the future of this country.

You are a Parsi, and Parsi life is very overtly a part of your fiction. How does your minority identity in a predominantly Islamic state affect your writing?

Any Parsi living outside of Bombay knows what it means to be marginalized. Parsis in Pakistan are known for their honesty and integrity. But no matter how well you are treated—Parsis are generally lionized in Pakistan—it is the Parsi attitude to themselves that distances them from others. This sense of alienation is very hard to overcome. I realized this when I lived as a young woman amidst a whole lot of relatives in Bombay. That was the time when I found my place in the world, my sense of belonging in the great Parsi diaspora spread over the globe.

I think though, that this experience of marginalization has shaped me as a writer. It creates a continuing sense of tension and conflict. There are some things one feels compelled to express. One does not know immediately what these pressures are, but they emerge in various forms of creativity.

This is true even when you feel that this sense of marginalization is brought on by yourselves as a community?

Yes. It is brought on by ourselves. We have so many rules and taboos distancing us from the people of other faiths. But other external factors also contribute to our marginalization.

Isn't this compelling creativity also a question of trying to preserve the community: i.e. through your writing?

Yes. The Crow Eaters, was quite definitely an act of preservation, although one could say that it is also a very Punjabi book! The Parsis and the Punjabis are very boisterous people. So there is a melding there. But there is no doubt that in this book I was conscious of trying to preserve Parsi charm and humor. As a community the Parsis cannot be sad for too long. The return to buffoonery and the raucous is the sign of their being alive. This is what I wanted to capture.

Yes, your novels have a fine overlay of humor. Would you like to comment on this aspect of your work? Is this very Parsi?

Yes, I think so. Whenever I am trying to create a Punjabi or Parsi character, humor is never far away. Whenever I drift away from them, humor does not stay very long. That is why The Crow Eaters is my funniest book. In The Ice-Candy-Man too, humor enters when the Parsi characters appear. I do think, though, that on the whole I have a gift for irony and humor. You can say the same thing in so many ways. Humor allows you to avoid what is truly tragic. I am tired of reading solemn works, especially by some writers from the subcontinent, which have been so sad that one begins to feel that life is really a sorry business. I am getting a little tired of this misery, misery, misery—especially when most people writing about this misery are sitting very comfortably in their own lives! Their writing becomes descriptive of a kind of generic misery. Often these writers don't even try to particularize it. Humor allows you to suggest more than is actually said. It gives human experience a perspective and a sense of balance: things are not really that grim all the time. There really are so many ways of looking at the world.

Would you say then that humor is integral to the Parsi community as a means of survival?

Yes and no. There have been instances when—say in a particular town where the Parsi community is very small (just a few families) and isolated—they tend to lose their sense of humor, and become quite eccentric. The relationship of a few Parsis to mainstream life is always problematic. Often humor becomes a sort of defense mechanism. I have to say, though, that Parsi humor is often so ethnic and part of its daily cultural habit that it remains hidden from others. Some of it is so crude that few Parsis show it outside the community. It would never be understood in the spirit that it was meant!

I have left the question of gender to the last. To what extent do you, as a woman writer, respond to the predicament of women in your society? What role do you assign to fiction in speaking out against patriarchy and other bonds that confine them in our part of the world?

I have very strong feelings about how women are treated in our part of the world. There is no doubt about this. But I would hate to sit down and rage about this in a novel. I go about it indirectly. I create characters in certain situations, and let them and their circumstances reveal the issues to the reader. I have created empowered women like the godmother in The Ice-Candy-Man, but I have also created women like the bride who have no control over their lives. So I write out of what I have seen and experienced over the years. For instance, many of the women characters in The Ice-Candy-Man, have been inspired by my work with destitute women in Pakistan. Wherever there is poverty, women suffer the most.

This interview is going to be published in a journal called ALIF which is published by the Department of English and Comparative Literature in The American University in Cairo. What would you say to writers, especially women writers, working out of the Arab world?

I think they have a big task on their hands because they have to fight on several counts. They are in perpetual confrontation with the west which has formed stereotypical images of the Islamic world. At another level, they have to fight against their own men. They have to fight against various religious decrees and Khalifats that seem to work against them. I don't know why, but most Islamic societies seem to want their women behind the veil, and this immediately dehumanizes them. As far as I know, this is not demanded by the holy Koran. Other strict religious decrees against women in the past (as in Judaism) are no longer maintained in quite the same way. Muslim women still have to fight against these. The Koran seems to need more careful scrutiny, and new interpretation undertaken by women. So far the males seem to have interpreted it to suit themselves. I am sure when the women interpret the Koran they do so quite differently. Women in other parts of the world are already interpreting it from this perspective.