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• December 28, 2024
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Another great author is no more with us. We count her work as a healing documentation of the India-Pakistan partition. If you have attended the offline batch or UGC-NET online classes at Sahitya Classes, you must have read about her literary contributions. Prof. Vineet Pandey has definitely talked about this Pakistani author while discussing the South-Asian authors. She is a prominent literary figure from Pakistan whose work has been widely read across the world. This blog is dedicated to Bapsi Sidhwa, a cross-border author who saw ‘humanity beyond horrors’.

Who is Bapsi Sidhwa? Know Her Journey From Beginning To End!

Bapsi Sidhwa is one of the prominent authors of Pakistan. For Sidhwa, writing was not only about expressing one’s thoughts. But it was a way to understand her experiences and the horrors she witnessed in the socio-political arena. Therefore, her writing was not just a personal act but it was a political one. She rightly fits into the “personal is political” framework associated with the radical feminist perspective. The art of writing itself is a rebellious act for women, as noted by the famous author, Virgina Woolf in her novel, A room of one’s own. So, it has never been so easy for a woman to get recognized in a literary space which is majorly dominated by male perspectives. Sidhwa, however, made her literary presence felt with her novel Ice Candy Man (1988, UK). In India, Sidhwa is known as the author of this novel while in her homeland, she is known for her writing in English. She emerged as the first author who wrote in English in Pakistan. This is a remarkable feat that she has achieved in her literary career. Being first always counts in literary history, but just being is a philosophy that most authors endure to fight for. Imbued with resilience, facing struggles, merging truth with storytelling is what Sidhwa is popularly known for.  

She is uniquely celebrated in Pakistan by the Parsi community and in the US, where she taught and lived for several years. She was awarded the Sitara-I-Imtiaz in 1991, Pakistan’s highest national honour in the arts. She was also inducted into the Zoroastrian Hall of Fame, reflecting her status as a global literary ambassador for the community.

Her novel, The Pakistani Bride (1981) is a depiction of patriarchal and misogynist laws that destroy women. The novel emerged from a story she heard while travelling in the Karakoram Mountains, located in northwest Pakistan. It was a story of a young Punjabi girl who was married off to a tribal man. She was subjected to immense cruelty and tried to run away. But her husband’s family captured her and beheaded her mercilessly. Then her headless body was thrown into Indus. The story nudged Sidhwa’s feminist core, and she wrote this novel with her husband. 

An American Brat dealt with a teenage Pakistani girl who found herself in America. In 2006 she edited City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore, which she called a “labour of love”, and added, “I felt I owed it to the city that nurtured me as a writer.”

Her debut novel, The Crow Eaters, depicted the conditions of the Parsi community living in Pakistan. However, it faced a major backlash from the community as some of the elders thought that Sidhwa had exposed their private lives and traditions that could damage their carefully curated public image. The launch of the book was so controversial that a bomb threat was made at its launch in Lahore. 

Her book, Ice Candy Man marked a significant shift in her literary career. The preface of the book marked a feminist perspective where she courageously wrote: “all wars are fought on women’s bodies.” The line inspired Deepa Mehta to seek permission for the film adaptation. 

In her lifetime, she always wrote about the lives of Pakistanis beyond the Western gaze. Her writing was an act of reclamation. Through her work, she highlighted the plight of Pakistani women and other marginalized communities. She truly wrote for Pakistan. The writer’s reclamation of dignity for the nation is present in her work. 

In an interview in 1991, Sidhwa said: 

“It’s been fashionable to kick Pakistan, and it’s been done again and again by various writers living in the West. And I feel, if there’s one little thing I could do, it’s to make people realise: We are not worthless because we inhabit a poor country or because we inhabit a country which is seen by Western eyes as a primitive, fundamentalist country only … I mean, we are a rich mixture of all sorts of forces as well, and our lives are very much worth living.”

 So, the journey of Bapsi Sidhwa has been completely covered here. Do read this blog for strategic preparations for the UGC-NET English Literature exam. 

Preparing for UGC-NET/JRF exam requires more than just effort. You need to be strategic. 

For strategic UGC-NET English exam preparation, you may also consider joining the best UGC NET coaching institute, Sahitya Classes. At Sahitya Classes, you will not just explore works of famous writers but you will also learn some fascinating and controversial facts about authors and their works from the two-times JRF holder, Prof. Vineet Pandey. Prof. Pandey is known for his fun-filled pedagogy wherein he uses day-to-day experiences of life to make you understand certain literary concepts or literary theories so that you can remember them easily while giving the exam. He will often focus on covering every aspect of the UGC-NET English Literature syllabus. While helping you understand the literary texts, he will cover the historical, political, and other contexts relevant to the texts. This will help you gain a deeper understanding of the literary texts. 

You will also receive UGC NET notes for English literature along with exclusive UGC-NET online classes. Our new batch will start on January 15, 2025 onwards. If you want to prepare for the UGC-NET English, you can also take our best UGC-NET crash course. In this crash course, you will get PYQs, test series, rapid-fire quiz sessions, mock-tests, live classes, and UGC NET English notes pdf.

Don’t forget to watch our videos on the 15-day exam strategy by Prof. Vineet Pandey. It will boost your exam preparations. Additionally, test-series for Paper 1 and Paper 2 are also available on our app. You can solve them and prepare effectively. So, what are you waiting for? Join now and get personalized guidance from Prof. Vineet Pandey!

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