Cracking India (43 page)

Sidhwa served on the advisory committee to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on issues of women's development, and her novel
Cracking India
has been made into the film
Earth
by Indian director Deepa Mehta.

Sidhwa has taught at Columbia University, the University of Houston, Mount Holyoke College, Brandeis University, and Southampton University in the United Kingdom. She has also been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, among them a NEA Fellowship, a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award, and the
Sitara-I-Imtiaz,
Pakistan's highest honor in the arts. She lives in Houston.

Growing up in Pakistan in the 1970s, Feroza Ginwalla is precocious, impetuous, and deeply affected by a rising tide of religious fundamentalism. When her family decides to send her to America for an extended holiday, a chain of amusing events and encounters ensues. She enrolls at a conservative Mormon college in Idaho, falls in love with a young man who is clearly not Parsee, and experiences her new country as only an immigrant can, even while her family worries that she is straying too far.

 

“Sidwha's writing is brisk and funny, her characters painted so vividly you can almost hear them bickering.”

—
New York Times Book Review

 

“Affecting, amusing, and profoundly enjoyable.”

—
Washington Post Book World

 

“An exceptional novel.”

—
Los Angeles Times

Loading his pregnant wife, infant daughter, and widowed mother-in-law into a bullock cart, Faredoon Junglewalla—Freddy for short--leaves his ancestral village in the forests of central India, bound for the bustling city of Lahore. Despite the nagging of his unbearable mother-in-law, Freddy's business and family flourish, and he soon becomes a patriarchal figure in the thriving Parsee community. Through a series of comical yet illuminating events, this enduring family saga provides a vibrant window onto life in India under British colonial rule. And as the novel comes to a close, it is clear that this world stands on the threshold of historic transformation.

 

“A rollicking comic tale.”

—
New York Times Book Review

 

“A delightful and perceptive view of a Parsee family's rise from rags to riches.... A most intelligent and enjoyable novel.”

—
Seattle Times

 

“[Bapsi Sidhwa's] roguish hero is a genuine charmer, and her book is as warm and vital as it is funny.”

—
Miami Herald

Founded in 1979, Milkweed Editions is the largest independent, nonprofit literary publisher in the United States. Milkweed publishes with the intention of making a humane impact on society, in the belief that good writing can transform the human heart and spirit. Within this mission, Milkweed publishes in five areas: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children's literature for middle-grade readers, and the World As Home—books about our relationship with the natural world.

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Interior design by R. W. Scholes.
Typeset in Trajanus Roman
by The Typeworks.
Printed on acid-free EB Natural recycled paper
by Edwards Brothers.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

© 1991, Text by Bapsi Sidhwa

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be
reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011
Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.
(800) 520-6455
www.milkweed.org

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-571-31827-5

 

Milkweed Editions, a nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges support from Anonymous: Emilie and Henry Buchwald; Bush Foundation; Patrick and Aimee Butler Family Foundation; Cargill Value Investment; Timothy and Tara Clark Family Charitable Fund; Dougherty Family Foundation; Ecolab Foundation; General Mills Foundation; Kathleen Jones; D. K. Light; McKnight Foundation; a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and private funders; Sheila C. Morgan; Laura Jane Musser Fund; an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art; Navarre Corporation; Debbie Reynolds; Cynthia and Stephen Snyder; St. Paul Travelers Foundation; Ellen and Sheldon Sturgis; Surdna Foundation; Target Foundation; Gertrude Sexton Thompson Charitable Trust (George R. A. Johnson, Trustee); James R. Thorpe Foundation; Toro Foundation; Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation; and Xcel Energy Foundation.

 

 

 

Sidhwa, Bapsi.

[Ice-candy-man]

Cracking India : a novel / Bapsi Sidhwa. p. cm.

 

Previously published as: Ice-candy-man.

 

1. India—History—1947—Fiction. I. Title.

PR9540.9.S53I34 1991

823-dc20 91-12967

This book is printed on acid-free paper.