Died: Bapsi Noshir Sidhwa, 88, well-known novelist popular for her sensitive portrayal of Parsi ethos, Pakistani norms and the brutality of partition; on December 25, 2024 in Houston following cardiac arrest.
"Bapsi was more than a literary icon. She was a mentor, an advocate, a role model for women and a beacon of hope for marginalized voices. Her indomitable spirit, sharp wit and profound compassion left an indelible mark on all who knew her,” noted a communique from the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America (FEZANA), announcing her demise.
At the 12th World Zoroastrian Congress in New York two years prior, FIRES (FEZANA Information Research and Education System) had initiated the Bapsi Sidhwa Literary Prize "as a testament to her unwavering commitment to storytelling and her belief in the transformative power of words…Through her novels, her advocacy and the countless lives she touched, Bapsi’s light will continue to shine brightly.” Five days after her passing away, this prize was conferred for the second time at the 18th North American Zoroastrian Congress in Houston. The first recipient was Tanaz Bhathena for her book Hunted by the Sky and the second recipient Roxana Trabulsi for Of Mud and Honey.
Sidhwa was the first Zoroastrian individual to be honored by the mayor of Houston when he declared July 26, 2005 as Bapsi Sidhwa Day. As noted the mayor’s proclamation, "The distinguished international writer has published four novels: An American Brat, Cracking India (originally titled Ice-Candy Man), The Bride and The Crow Eaters, and she has been translated into several European and Asian languages. She was born in Karachi, brought up in Lahore and she now lives in Houston… Houston has been enriched by the presence and contributions of its residents of Pakistani ancestry, and is especially proud to be recipient of their many significant contributions to the cultural, civic, economic and spiritual life of our city.”
Acknowledging the honor bestowed on her, Sidhwa had remarked, "I love Houston for its rich cultural diversity… I was welcomed by the Houston community of writers… When I received the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Award and when the film Earth, based on my book Cracking India was released in Houston, the Houston Chronicle gave it a wonderful splash…”
The $ 3.2 million (Rs 27.71 crore) celluloid epic that saw partition through the eyes of a little Parsi child, based on Sidhwa’s memories of the communal tension in Lahore, had won the Grand Prize at the Deauville Panasian Film Festival in France, was chosen as the Indian entry for the Oscar Academic Awards for the Best Foreign Film for1999, and was nominated as one of the top 10 films of 1999 by London’s Timeout magazine.
Top and center: Bapsi Sidhwa autographing one of her popular books (above); r: movie poster
Deepa Mehta who wrote the screenplay and directed Earth was quoted in the Hindustan Times of December 27, 2024, "Bapsi possessed a collaborative spirit that made working with her not just fun but also immensely enriching. The only sort of people she could not tolerate, she often admitted, were those who did not have the ability to laugh at themselves. Bapsi was exactly the sort of woman who could laugh at herself — and she often did. Her works were studies of human foibles, but equally displayed the resilience of the human spirit.” The bonds formed by the two women further deepened when in 2005 Sidhwa turned one of Mehta’s later films, Water, into a novel of the same name.
Taking pride in the ambience she had captured of different cultures, Bapsi had earlier remarked, "I would hope when anybody wants to know about Parsis, they would say: ‘Oh, read The Crow Eaters, it’s entertaining and it tells you a lot about the community.’ If somebody wants to know about Pakistan, I hope The Bride would be pointed out as a novel that displays its culture. Again, Ice-Candy Man is a story of India and Pakistan and it deals exhaustively with the partition. And I would like to be known for these books.”
Pained by the vindictive efforts of the neighboring countries to destabilize each other, Sidhwa had commented, "We have to put the partition behind us… The animosity must go. Once borders become porous, the subcontinent will become like Europe.” According to her, "Parsis are more devoted to India than even a Hindu. We have this deep-seated loyalty to the land where we live. (Are we) rising to the challenge of the warring communities around us?”
Her first novel, The Crow Eaters, a good-natured satire on Parsis, had the community bristling for they thought she had betrayed them! Unable to find an interested publisher in Pakistan, she had self-published the book in 1978. To Sidhwa, Parsis were a "nutty, funny community,” as she had summed up in an interview for the Oral History Project of The Citizens Archive of Pakistan. Once this book was published in the UK in 1981, and "favorably reviewed in the West, the Pakistani media followed suit,” noted an obituary in The Guardian of January 10, 2025.
Seated, from l: Mohur, Bapsi and Noshir Sidhwa; standing:
family friend, Shernaz and Feroze Bhandara, Parizad Sidhwa;
inset: Khodadad Kermani
When she initially struggled to find suitable words to describe her subjects and situations, she would constantly refer to the dictionary and thesaurus. Once she had a good command of the language she found that her "books started writing themselves.”
Her second novel, The Bride, was based on the life of a young rural woman who is married off to a man much older than her from a distant town. Despite her initial naivety in an unfamiliar world, she risks her life to escape oppression. "One of the main characters is nature, the Karakoram mountains, the Indus river,” images she had carried back with her from her honeymoon following her second marriage to Noshir Sidhwa at 26 years of age. Her first marriage to Gustad Kermani of Bombay had ended in a divorce within five years after she bore a daughter Mohur and son Khodadad. Parizad was the offspring of her second marriage.
When Noshir’s work took him to the US, Bapsi and the family relocated there too. Besides teaching creative writing at various universities including Columbia, Brandeis and Houston, she wrote An American Brat, the story of Feroza, a sheltered Parsi girl who has been sent to the US for higher education. "Mohur who married an American and I were characters in this hilarious book,” recalled her brother Feroze Bhandara, 17 years her junior, at a memorial meet for Bapsi.
He never tired of teasing her about her poor verbal skills in English for in the mid 1970s when Bapsi had come visiting him, he was summoned by the immigration officer at the San Francisco airport. When asked her profession, she said "writer.” The immigration officer, assuming she did not understand English and must be a writer in some other language, sought out Feroze as an interpreter!
During the last few years when managing her affairs, Feroze noticed that while her legal name was spelt as Bapsy, as an author she preferred to spell her name as Bapsi. When he asked her the reason, she replied, "Bapsi spelt with an ‘i’ looked cuter!” Bedridden in the last few months following multiple cerebral hemorrhages, Feroze would daily visit his sister and reminisce of friends and neighbors from earlier days. Discussions on politics often ended in arguments but she was "always happy to see me again the next day.”
Bapsi Sidhwa Day proclamation presented to the author (l)
Born to Tehmina and Peshotan Bhandara, Bapsi had contracted polio as a child that left her physically frail and unable to attend school. Educated by private tutors and with very few playmates, she found refuge in books. In this solitary existence, "the silences of life gave me the tenacity to write, the vacuum was filled by my thoughts,” she had revealed. In a documentary on her titled Bapsi: The Silences of My Life, she stated that after graduating from Kinnaird College for Women, a university in Lahore, she started writing, secretly at first until her talent was discovered.
Among the other honors to have been conferred on Sidhwa were the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s highest national honor in the arts, the Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe/Harvard, and the LiBeraturpreis in Germany. She was also inducted into the Zoroastrian Hall of Fame at the Seventh World Zoroastrian Congress in Houston in 2000.
Involved with the Zoroastrian Association of Houston for close to four decades, "Bapsi’s involvement was both personal and impactful, contributing to our cultural and literary vibrancy. She attended all our library events and shared her insights,” remarked Aban Rustomji, chair of FIRES, adding, "Through her literary works and local engagements she helped spotlight Zoroastrian heritage within the community and beyond.”
Realizing the need for accepting into the fold children and spouses of intermarried Zoroastrians, Bapsi had commented, "We need it badly. Our children are marrying out. We don’t want to become dodos of an old religion.” She was not sure though how to handle the subject of conversion, viewing that as "a complex issue. How do we absorb them into the faith?...We are too few.” Five years ago, at the inauguration of the Bhandara Atash Kadeh in Houston, donated by Feroze and his wife Shernaz, Bapsi had commented, "Sitting there, I felt a sense of peace and sublimity.”
The convivial author is survived by her daughters Mohur and Parizad Sidhwa, son Khodadad Kermani, and brother Feroze Bhandara.