Ice Candy Man - A Review

Book: Ice Candy Man

Author: Bapsi Sidwha

Review By: Hammad Anwar 

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PLOT

The book “Ice-Candy Man” is basically a narrative story of a young girl Lenny, polio stricken young girl. She belongs to a Parsee family, which is part of the small Parsee community of combined India. Her family is an influential one with powerful friends like Inspector General of Police who is often invited to family’s social gatherings. The family includes her parents, her brother, her Godmother, aunt, her Ayah and servants.

The story starts with her trips to parks and different places of old Lahore with her Ayah, where she meets many of her Ayah’s friends too. The neighborhood of she is a part has different families, from Muslims to Sikhs. So, that’s how our young Lenny experiences the world, from being taken to his native village by Imam Din to hiding under table and listening to the conversations of guests which are mostly about politics. She loves her Ayah very much; she is a young pretty girl who is admired by many young guys of the neighborhood which include Ice-Candy Man, Sharbat Khan, and Masseur.

But this harmony doesn’t lasts very long, as Lenny is getting older; the political condition in India is turning into turmoil. The combined India is heading for a partition; this changes the complexion of her life. Being Parsee, her community is indifferent and safe yet things change around her. Her neighbors Mr. Sher Singh’s family leaves their houses, Mr. Rogers, a British is killed, and their houses are left behind empty. The biggest personal tragedy then struck Lenny, her Ayah, a Hindu, is kidnapped by an angry mob that is looking for all Hindus and Sikhs.

This is a great setback for her and her family. They all love Ayah and want her to be safe. She gets a new Ayah but she is unable to forget older one. The life remains the static after independence except that her mother and aunt join ranks of other women to rescue the kidnapped ladies and send them to their native homes. Lenny is now getting older and she is developing feelings for her cousin as well. She is curious to know what goes around her.

Finally, in the latter part of book, Lenny finally comes to know that her Ayah is still in Lahore and lives in place called Heera Mandi. She pays her a visit to her with Godmother and become aware of the fact that her husband is none other than Ice-Candy Man. Ayah doesn’t like being put as a show piece and therefore Lenny’s Godmother rescues her and finally in the end she leaves for her family in Amritsar, with Ice-Candy Man following her.           

The book is the story of love, affection, terrible bloody events of partition, plus giving the view of different communities and sect through her characters. Bapsi Sidhwa here describes not only the events of the partition like migration and large killings but she describes in quite a neutral manner. Sidhwa, being a Parsee, is not taking any of the three biggest sects described in the book; Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Yet, she has build characters in the way that point of view of each of the three communities is part of the overall story. Imam Din, Lenny’s Muslim servant, often expresses the Muslim stance, Mr. Sher Singh, the hyper Sikh, is observed explaining Sikh stance.

THEMES

While the book deals with the events of partition, this all is basically expressed through eyes of a child. Lenny is an eight-year old child; she watches this historical change around her. Her neighborhood, where she used to play with other children becomes vacant. She suffers when her Ayah is kidnapped by the mob led by Ice Candy Man, whom she always took as a nice and loving man. She suffers the pain of without being Ayah. As she gets older, she finally understands what love is and develops feeling for her cousin. The notable thing is that Sidhwa chose a child as the main character and observer because being a child makes her act and think in an unbiased way.

The third and important theme it covers is the religious differences which suddenly arise between the nations that have been living together for centuries. The Muslim Moghal Empire lasted for some thousand years, where the (excluding some incidents) the Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs lived together. But as the liberation movement started, suddenly Sikhs were following Master Tara Singh, Hindus worshipping Gandhi and Muslims fighting under Jinnah. As in Lenny’s thoughts Sidhwa writers “One day everyone is themselves and the next day they are Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikh.”       

But then the partition takes all the harmony out of these people, like the bloody incidents in Imam Din’s village have been described, where even all the sects agreed not to harm anyone even if partition occurs, and then whole family except the kid Ranna is wiped from the face of earth. This was not story in just one village but it happened everywhere, the vows of remaining peaceful and protecting each other broke the day independence was announced and Muslims Hindus, and Sikhs were equally involved. There isn’t much difference in the mob that killed Ranna’s family to those who kidnapped Ayah.

REVIEW

The book basically portrays the era of 1940’s, where it describes the events of partition of 1947. This was a historical change, where the British were leaving India finally, and Muslims were getting their separate homeland. The ideology of Pakistan always had been described as religion, thus majority of the Muslims migrated to the Muslim majority areas declared as Pakistan and Hindus/Sikhs moved to India. This is often remembered as one of the largest ever migration in the history.

The migration was full of bloodshed and stories of murders of people migrating haunted the people for many decades. In areas, where Muslims were in minority, they were looted, their men and children killed, and their women raped and taken away as slaves. This is also defined in this novel as this is what happens to Ranna’s family. This was not only limited to Muslims but it happened to Hindus and Sikhs where they were minority, the prime in this regard being of Ayah, who was Hindu and she was kept by different men from February to May before she was finally wed to Ice Candy Man.

The writer being a Parsee had created the character of Lenny and her family in a way that it is indifferent between the religious battles. The author tries to present her view point in a neutral way.

Personally, I guess she had been able to present an awesome piece of writing. The usual literature available on the topic of partition is biased one meaning even unintentionally the author’s religious beliefs had affected the text. But, keeping the fact in mind that Bapsi Sidhwa gains no benefits by taking anyone’s side, the reader doesn’t feel any kind of negative thoughts about any particular sect If, Ayah was kidnapped than Ranna also lost his family, meaning in this book she presents that how much everyone suffered. As a reader, I would like to read a book where the author leaves the decision to be made by me, rather than forcing any final declaration on me. And that’s what happens in this book, the more I think about how each personality suffered, from Ayah to Hamida, from Imam Din to Hari and from Masseur to Ice Candy Many. The story doesn’t even ends at independence but it goes all down to the post independent era, where their was new inhabitants of house left by Hindus, scared of their future. Although, the country taken under slogan of Islam, places like Heera Mandi were filled with people and to date they does.

Lastly, what I would like to appreciate is that the book is not filled with just statistics that those many people died while migrating or how the Radcliff Award was unjust for Pakistan, this book targeted the simple emotions of love and affection. Like how a child thought and perceived all these events. The story is a mixture of love, hate, trust, emotions, betrayal, wisdom, and the historical change.

Bapsi Sidhwa is today one of the most acclaimed writers from South Asia; she is ranked as high as writers like R.K.Naryan, Anita Desai and Khushwant Singh. She stands out form her contemporary fellow writers because of her work that reflects her real life. In Crow Eaters, the parents shown resemble to her real parents, like Lenny in Ice-Candy Man, Sidhwa also suffered from polio and couldn’t even go to school. So, her novels are more close to reality than others as they reflect her personal experiences.

Secondly, as already discussed above Ideology section, she comes from a Parsee background and thus is indifferent between religious differences. She tries to remain neutral and leaves the final decision pending to the reader rather than forcing it on reader. The most of the literature work done on the topic of partition is biased one. But, rarely can anyone criticize Sidhwa for her biasness.

Her work is more character-oriented, like in Ice Candy Man, she doesn’t directly describe the events of partition but she actually presents how her different characters are affected by it. Thus, she presents the main theme in an indirect yet wonderful way and this quality of hers surly makes her stand out of rank of ordinary writers.