Ice-Candy-Man by Bapsi Sidhwa (Analysis)

 

Ice-Candy-Man

by Bapsi Sidhwa

(Analysis) 

Themes

Autobiography

Ice-Candy-Man is a novel that imaginatively tells the story of a young Parsee girl’s growing up against the backdrop of the events that led up to and succeeded the Partition of India in 1947. Assessed on the microcosmic level, Ice-Candy-Man focuses on the events in the personal life of Lenny growing up in Lahore. In more ways than one, Lenny resembles Sidhwa whose own childhood was spent in Lahore in the years preceding the Partition. Like the writer herself, Lenny’s is a cocooned world comprising her Mother, Father, Godmother, Ayah, and the contingent of domestics employed by her affluent parents. On one level, Sidhwa’s focus is on Lenny’s identity as a young handicapped girl vis-à-vis these people who surround and emotionally sustain her.

History

Much beyond this small world of the child lies the macrocosm of the larger world of the country with its diverse communities, faiths and allegiances. The novel portrays situations in which identity is sought to be defined through the lens of religion. Revealed in the process are the ironies and dangers of allowing religious identities to prevail over social and personal ones. It is this outlook in peoples’ minds which caused the bloodbath of Partition. Ice-Candy-Man captures a defining moment in South Asian history which changed the map of the world. Its repercussions are still being felt in the communal divides that beset our subcontinent.

Identity

Bapsi Sidhwa’s heritage allowed her to witness the Partition from a safe distance, since Parsees held a religiously and politically neutral position. This perspective is conveyed in the novel through the calculated responses of Parsee characters like Colonel Bharucha and others congregating at community gatherings.

Written from the perspective of Lenny, the novel grapples with the issues of identity on both microcosmic and the macrocosmic levels. On the microcosmic level, the novel’s prominent characters evolve into personae dominated by their religious personality. From individuals who once coalesced on the social and the emotional levels, these folks are forced by circumstance and politics to re-create themselves as adherents to their specific faiths. In the bargain, they lose their humanitarian edge and mechanically evolve into dehumanized stereotypical zealots. On the macrocosmic level, the novel embodies the voice of an author who herself represents minority existence, first as a Parsee and then as a diasporic voice which speaks from another continent but voices concerns that have relevance and significance even today.

One of the strongest indictments by Sidhwa is contained in the symbolic desecration of women. In an interview, Sidhwa had remarked that during Partition a woman’s body became the arena both for vengeance and celebration that transcended all limits of human decency. In the novel, Ayah is the woman whose body is used, abused and misused by men who participate in the premeditated orgy of violence and retribution that runs through the text.

Another aspect of identity within the novel is linked to the concept of power. On one hand is the notion of political power and machinations. This gets voiced through fictional characters and fictionalized historical personae, all of whom represent and speak for various segments of society and ideology. On the other hand, is the notion of sexual power which is conveyed through the complex character of Lenny. The novel begins with her portrayal as a child who then evolves through teenage, adolescence and young adulthood. Very early in her life, Lenny is inadvertently initiated into sexual awareness by the very people who are expected to exercise restraint and protect her. Her first initiation comes through her parents’ relationship; then it is Ayah’s interaction with admirers, specifically Masseur and Ice-Candy-Man; and finally, it is Cousin who introduces her to physical intimacy and response. Throughout the novel, sexuality is an obsessive part of Lenny’s life and consciousness. This facet, perhaps, reflects the fact that the novel emanates from a milieu in which there is much sexual repression and Sidhwa imaginatively weaves this reality of her homeland into her narrative.

Style and Tone of the Novel

Sidhwa writes in a style characterised by fluency and colloquialism. The story is narrated in present tense as events unfold before Lenny’s eyes. All through the narrative we are always aware of an adult Lenny looking back at and interpreting the experiences of her past. The narrative has a linear progression, that is, it follows a chronological sequence of events, beginning with Lenny and Ayah’s close association in Lahore a few years before 1947, and culminating in Ayah’s departure from the city after Partition.

From a literary perspective, the novel reflects an ironic humour. This subtle irony dispenses with grandiloquence yet it is a telling tale of the postcolonial realities that dogged and continue to dog the erstwhile territories of the British Empire. It is through her forte of understatement that Sidhwa delicately weaves her tale round the romance of Ayah in a world torn asunder by people ostensibly fighting for their faiths.

The novel’s tone interweaves grimness and hilarity. Elements of starkness are laced with sharp ironic humour and ribaldry. There is a synthesis of tones of compassion with the notes of indictment and sudden bursts of hilarity. All these combine to evoke both anger and sympathy within us, purging our anger and aspiring to restore faith in basic human goodness.

Characterization

Sidhwa’s characters are chiseled with an understated delicacy that conveys the sensibilities and the sensitivities of her creations. The most significant characters are:

 

1.               The narrator, Lenny, a sharp, precocious child who enjoys the privilege of detachment even when in the thick of company. Her narrative voice is one of retrospect and hindsight as she weaves the story of her childhood. Through her, Sidhwa is able to sensitively convey the angst and outrage of an India being partitioned due to the one-upmanship of politicians. Sidhwa is sometimes criticized for creating Lenny as a character far too intelligent for her age.

 

2.               Shanta, Lenny’s Ayah, who is pivot around whom events in the novel unfold. In her equations with other people, this attractive young girl is the foil created by the novelist to counter the depths of brutality and suffering that other characters have to undergo. Her suffering at the climax, despite her good-heartedness, underlines the pangs of India’s Partition.

 

3.               Ice-candy-man, Ayah’s obsessive admirer, who initiates the climactic flurry of events, and himself becomes an unwitting victim of Partition. Drawn like many other men by the magnetic beauty of Ayah, Ice-candy-man appears in the roles of ice cream vendor, bird seller, cosmic connector to Allah via telephone, and pimp. The nature of his love is constantly changing and he is a slippery character. In many ways, he symbolises the multifarious dimensions of India through his persona which journeys through the extremes of passion, spirituality and cruelty.

 

4.               Colonel Bharucha, the critical commentator on the machinations of the colonial power and advocate of Parsee self-preservation in the troubled times of Partition.

 

5.               Masseur, Ayah’s lover and beloved, whose presence drove Ice-Candy-Man to insane retribution. Masseur is elegant, compactly muscled, reserved, competent, assured, kneading knotty shoulders and soothing aching limbs, an oasis of calm in a violent, dehumanized world in which he became the sacrificial victim.

 

6.               Lenny’s Mother and Father, who were the voices of sanity and humanity in a world gone mad.

 

7.               Godmother Rodabai who emotionally sustained Lenny in times of the young girl’s alienation and trauma. She is a mother figure, a woman imbued with an intensity of tenderness, love, humour, and courage of conviction not perceived in any other character. She is the epitome of compassion in a brutalized world.

Besides these figures so central to the train of events, Sidhwa creates a multitude of other characters who serve as a chorus commentating both on events within the novel as also on events and personalities that shaped the events preceding Partition. The novelist appropriately brings them together as admirers of Ayah who all congregate in Lahore’s public gardens to vie for her attention when she takes Lenny there in the evenings. These choric voices represent a whole spectrum of contemporary opinion ranging from the corridors of power—represented by people like the Government House gardener and the Falletis Hotel cook—to humble dwellings of the common masses—symbolized by folk like the zoo attendant, the cook and the wayside restaurant owner. Juxtaposed in between the votaries and opponents of Partition are Lenny’s and Ayah’s perceptions of the event. In addition to these different perspectives is the peculiar intersection of faith and politics. Sidhwa insinuates this by writing that “the madder the mystic, the greater his power” to damage the social fabric.

Sidhwa’s chorus of characters is an example of history that is fictionalized. Through shades of opinion that get expressed by her protagonists, she succeeds in capturing and conveying the sensitivities of various classes of society that were caught in the complexity and perplexities of Partition.

Novel’s Locale

The novel’s canvas combines the realities of everyday existence with the abstractions of politics. The world and times of Partition are packed in the microcosm of Lenny’s memories. Ice-Candy-Man portrays a child’s world asserting itself in the assorted company of adults when it reflects the complexities of racial, ethnic and religious violence. Set in the city of Lahore in undivided Punjab, and then in the new nation of Pakistan, there are carnivalesque scenes in which characters commentate as a chorus on the events in which they are enmeshed. These scenes that Sidhwa describes occur in a variety of places. When occurring in Lenny’s parental home, they symbolize an island of emotional security that is brutally breached. In Godmother’s house, the inhabitants’ interaction stands for a haven of compassion and refuge for tormented souls. In the public gardens of Lahore, they symbolize urbane perceptions; when they occur in Pir Pindo, they represent rural perceptions. Parsee gatherings are occasions that reverberate with the strategies of survival of a minuscule minority.

Metaphorical Undertones

The text is interspersed with Urdu poetry. This reflects not only the literary milieu which shaped the writer’s creative imagination but also stands as cryptic elliptical observation on textual events.

The epigraph at the opening of the novel is a translation of the opening lines of “Shikwa,” a famous long poem of Urdu poet, Mohammad Iqbal. “Shikwa” voices Man’s lamentation of God’s dispensation; in the textual context, the quoted lines emphasize the helplessness of man in the face of the vagaries of fate—a reality that the novel consistently underlines. In another quote from Iqbal, this time at the beginning of Chapter 13, Sidhwa asserts the changing equations in a world witnessing the erosion of European/white man’s colonial rule as the centre cannot hold and horrors are perpetrated on the colonized. In the concluding chapter of the novel, Sidhwa again quotes from “Shikwa” to highlight Ice-candy-man’s plight in love after Ayah has been rescued from his clutches.

At other occasions in the novel, translations of Urdu verses are quoted to reinforce feelings of characters caught in adverse circumstances. In Chapter 29, Urdu poet, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, belonging to the Progressive Writers Movement, is quoted to underline Ice-candy-man’s innate guilt that kept him away from Lenny’s family after he had Ayah abducted. By talking of the impatient wait of a lover, Ayah’s obsessive lover hopes to deflect uncomfortable questions about her whereabouts. Lines of Faiz are again brought up to suggest that there is yet another anguish besides rejection in love. A little later, Ice-candy-man quotes from another Urdu poet, Wali Deccani, to reiterate his love for Ayah whom he has grievously wronged. When Godmother visits the red-light district of Hira Mandi to see for herself how Ayah fares after marriage, Ice-candy-man tries to flatter Godmother with Ghalib’s famous couplet that describes the joy of a lover at the mistress’ unexpected arrival. Ghalib’s plaintive appeal on being turned away from the threshold of the beloved is Ice-candy-man’s refrain whenever Ayah is taken for homeopathic treatment after being brought to Recovered Women’s Camp. Mir Taqi Mir’s couplet is quoted to reiterate how Ice-candy-man is ever-willing to put up with the tyrannical ways of his mistress. Zauq’s words are feebly echoed to announce his beloved’s refusal to let him enter the domain of her heart and later to emphasize his mystical, obsessive madness for, and eventual union with her.

Besides incorporating verses from renowned Urdu poets, Sidhwa takes recourse to poetry herself to give expression to Masseur’s passion for Ayah. His oft-sung special song for her is a highly romanticized outpouring steeped in natural imagery. In their romantic moments, with Lenny as the usual presence, this song is not without a sinister edge— “the bee stole the rose’s youth.” For having physically surrendered herself to Masseur, Ayah has to face the jealous tyranny and terrible vengeance exacted by the rejected lover, Ice-candy-man. He first shadows the lovers, knowing that he does not have a place in Ayah’s heart, then savagely abducts her, making sure that she is sullied to such an extent that no man will claim her, and finally he marries her, treating her like a caged bird in retribution for her giving her affections elsewhere. At the climax of the novel, he takes to throwing flowers into the Recovered Women’s Camp where Ayah lives before being sent to her relatives in India. Accompanying this action is always a song on his lips that reiterates his unforgettable memories of her. But it is these very memories that she is desperate to forget and so crosses over to India. The poetry in the text is often a symbolic summation of characters’ feelings as they subtly point to events.

Configurations of Love

Ice-Candy-Man is a novel that highlights the depths of human relationships against the backdrop of Partition. These are relationships marked by different shades of love and lust that permeate the narrative. We become aware of both the destructive and the sustaining aspects of these different kinds of love and lust. The sustaining, unconditional love between Lenny and Godmother is the purest form of love between human beings. To a slightly lesser degree, is the caring and intense affection between Lenny and Ayah. Lenny’s household domestics and Ayah’s friends represent another front of human bondage. Then there is the caring, nurturing love between Lenny and her parents. Sibling love, with its constant bickering, is reflected in the Lenny-Adi and Godmother-Slavesister relationships.

Love grounded in the cause of humanitarian concerns is seen in the covert actions of Mother and Electric-aunt. The two women display remarkable courage by smuggling petrol to help Lahore’s Hindus and Sikhs escape lynch mobs and to help kidnapped women like Ayah cross the border to their relatives in India. The cruel, pitiless, obsessive face of human love is exhibited in the Ayah-Icecandy-man relationship. Initially besotted with her, he becomes an avenger when he finds a rival. He then ensures that the good-natured woman is physically defiled before he forces her into an asphyxiating marriage from which she is rescued and sent to relatives in India.

Love and lust for power is underlined in the movement for Indian independence. The demand for Home Rule, says Col. Bharucha, “is a struggle for power” in which the major communities “jockey.” This is apparent in the machinations of the various classes of power that the novel’s chorus refers to. These include bureaucrats like Inspector General of Police Rogers who insinuatingly plays off one community against the other; the British establishment which seeks to prop up an Empire on its last legs by juggling with Viceroys like Wavell and Mountbatten, and leaders like Gandhi, Nehru and Patel; politicians like Master Tara Singh and Jinnah who try to carve out as large a slice of power and territory as is possible in the chaotic circumstances of Partition; and political parties like the Congress, the Akalis and the Muslim League “who won’t agree on a single issue” to assert their contempt not only for each other but also for human life.

Love of ancestral lands and rootedness to one’s soil is portrayed through the village folk of Pir Pindo who cannot conceive leaving behind the lands of their forefathers to migrate to an unknown land simply for the sake of religion. A politicised love for one’s religion is portrayed as the underlying discourse on Partition, especially the venom spouted by characters belonging to different faiths. The tragedy of communalisation pervades the novel as voices of fiction commentate as politicised angles of perception that resulted in the tragedy of Partition.