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Fariha Ali
CHARACTER SKETCHING:ICE CANDY MAN
By
Bapsi Sidhwa

LENNY
Lenny is the main character of the novel Ice Candy Man which is written by Bapsi
Sidhwa . This novel is based on the post and pre partition scenario. Lenny is a girl
belonging to Parsee community and is about five years in the start of the novel and by the
end of story , she is an eight year girl. She has got a physical defect in her limb because
of which her movement is limited and hampered. Lenny in this novel is a child narrator
and being a narrator we can safely refer Lenny to be sole witness of every event
happening in the story and thus we first have to see every event, happening or phenomena
through eyes of Lenny and then through whatever discourse we tend to apply. Being on a
position of narrator Lenny has justified her observatory skills. She has got great
mindfulness of every thing happening around. ,not only just the physical occurring of
events but along with that she gives us an x-ray disposition of every character ,from their
physical outlook to their innermost intentions with a child like delicacy but without child
like imbecility . For in the process of growing up with a physical disability Lenny has out
grown her senses to the extent of maturity at such a young age, which contributed to her
extra ordinary sense of cognizance which became our sole guide to tragedy, wit and
emotions in the novel .
Lenny’s observation has not only made her one profound observer but those
observations have led her to be a mix bag of emotions. If she loves , she loves with such
fervent that surpasses her all other emotions, for instance her love for Godmother is one
of an exceptional kind where her all pains succumb by just being around her beloved
Godmother , for instance when Lenny has been operated and in an extreme pain but as
she sees Godmother, she forgets all miseries in the benign presence of her Godmother, the
blissful moment let her all concentrations squeezed upon the attire of Godmother while
forgetting all about her agony.
She sits by my bed stroking me , smiling,her eyes twinkling concern, in her grey going
out sari ,it’s pretty border of butterflies pinned to iron strands of scant combed back hair.
The intensity of her tenderness and the concentration of her attention are narcotic. I
require no-one else. (Sidhwa 1989p.8)
Where her love is of extreme nature so is her hatred, at one place while feeling immense
rage for Ice-candy man she experiences an upthrust of severe anger in her.
There is a suffocating explosion within my eyes and head. A blinding blast of pity and
disillusioned and a savage rage. My sight is disoriented. I see ice-candy man float away
in a bubble and dwindle to a grey speck in the aftermath of the blast and then come so
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close that i can sèe every pore and every muddy crease in his skin magnified in dazzling
luminosity. (Sidhwa,1989, p.251)
The statement above shows that being hampered by physical disability she has somehow
sharpens the flow of emotions within her. And these very emotions became her medium
of connections in terms of relationships , for instance her love for Godmother and Ayah
have resulted in an impassioned bond of intimacy, even when Ayah was being dragged
apart from her , she did not lost that unwavering love for her, she never thought of
replacing Ayah’s place in her life.
These emotions along with her physical restrictions somehow became a significant
reason for surrealistic thinking of Lenny .
Surrealism was a cultural movement in the field of visual art and writing where artists
experimented the art form by mixing handful of reality mixed with intrigued realm of
unconsciousness.
As Turkel in his paper about Surrealist Art says about Freud and Surrealism,
Reknowned psychologist Sigmund Freud’s influence on the Surrealists cannot be
understated, before Freudian psychiatry, the world of dreams was dismissed as
insignificant and the unconscious was unimportant and inexistent.
Freud discovered the importance of the unconscious and dreams and the Surrealists knew
that this must be combined with reality in order to create a truer surreality. Surrealists had
to find a way to allow their unconscious and subconscious to manifest themselves in their
work, and so a number of techniques were created with that goal. (Turkel,2009, p.4)
Lenny’s narrative contains many such hints towards her the surreality of her thoughts.
Where she tries to make connection of her unseen world with the reality .
Why does my stomach sink all the way to hell even now? I had my own stock of Indian
bogey-men. Choorails, witches with turned about feet who ate the hearts and livers of
straying children. Bears lurking, ready to pounce if I didnot finish my pudding.
(Sidhwa,1989, p.22)
She somehow manages to escape into her world of dreams. In the narrative we find her
quite a few times describing her dreams and sometimes merging the real with dreams that
let her make sense of the life she lives, restricted movement yet very astirred and bustling
in nature. For instance during her visit to zoo she compares the lions, real one and that in
her dreams
There he lies,the ferocious beast of my nightmares, looking toothless and innocent. . .
lying in wait to spring, fully dentured,into my dreams. (Sidhwa,1989, p.9)
At one place while visiting Lahore with Ayah and Masseur she sensed the unseen
presence of Ice-candy Man, she presents the information which sometimes becomes
difficult to categorize as reality or figment of imagination.
He prowls on the other side of the artificial hill behind the peacocks when they spread
their tail feathers and open their turquoise eyes: he has as many eyes and they follow us.
(Sidhwa,1989, p.121)
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Thus her this stupendous capacity to reside in a world of magical realism has somehow
made her reluctant to accept the normality of things, she is happy in her wonderland. She
is startled with the concept of living a life that everyone is living and that has also render
her to live a less-mobile and docile lifestyle, she is comfortable to be uncomfortable in
her movements, she is comfortable to be dependent on everyone else, she is comfortable
to live an uncompetitive life,
What if I Have to Labour at learning spellings and reciting poems and strive with forty
other driven children to stand first, second or third in class? (Sidhwa,1989, p.9)
Lenny’s real world appears less attractive in comparison to her hyperactive dream world.
In the novel we find less accounts of her genuine reactions to particular situations, she
has preferred more to react in her mind with her emotions oozing out of her bottled self.
For instance while having a talk on guys topic with her cousin Lenny felt least excited
and lost her senses in her fantasy world to think of a situation which will cause her
slumberous emotions come to life.
The world is athrob with men. As long as they have some pleasing attribute -height,
width, or beauty of face- no man is too is too old to attract me. Or too young
(Sidhwa,1989, p.219)
But i think not for too long Lenny was growing up and for her thriving with such
peculiar sense of sensitivity, it was difficult to remain untouched by the grim realities of
life, the amount of hostility and malevolent she witnessed during barbarous event of
partition was enough to shake one out of the coozy comforts of dreamland, at one place
we find her saying,
The confrontation between icecandy man and Godmother opened my eyes to the
righteous indignation over compassion. (Sidhwa,1989, p.252)
Lenny’s blossoming body was trying to make sense of the world that resides out of the
realm of innocence and goodness. Her childhood capacity of quick learning helped her to
be in pace with the gruesome factuality of life, she started to know the price one has to
pay to be a grown up. Slowly and gradually she was becoming accustomed to the world
of maturity and trickery. She was learning the artfulness of living a life that everyone has
to learn when the time comes. An art that has to pay a heavy price in the form of
heartbreaks and losses.
I have never cried this way before. It is how grown-ups cry when their hearts are
breaking. (Sidhwa,1989, p.254)
She was maturing with the pace of situations arising around her, she was learning how to
be a grown up, how to say a goodbye to the world of childhood and innocence.
When something upsets me this much I find it impossible to talk. It used not to be so. I
wonder: am I growing up? At least I’ve stopped babbling all my thoughts. (Sidhwa,1989,
p.217)

GODMOTHER
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Godmother in the novel is also one of the major characters. Her name is Rodabai. She
is an elderly lady of substance, full of grace always attired in Khaddar sarees. And right
in the start we get a glimpse of her through words of Lenny, as a fountainhead of love and
compassion. For Lenny she is dearer than a mother. Along with her lovable personality
Lenny is much attracted to her feminine grace. Lenny describes her when Godmother
comes after taking bath,
She looks like a dainty young thing. As if water has whittled away her
age. (Sidhwa,1989, p.165)
She is a childless woman and Lenny takes fuller advantage of this fact by extracting all
her motherly fondness out of her. Lenny’s definition of love starts and end with
her Godmother. Her love quotient is satiated through Godmother’ phenomenal amount of
emotional attachment. As in Lenny’s words this love is more satisfying than the love
between a man and women. (Sidhwa,1989, p.4)
Godmother also loves Lenny as her own child. She is never bothered about her being
physically disable unlike her mother. She showers her uncontained, uncontested love over
Lenny
.... is stronger than the bond of motherhood. (Sidhwa,1989, p.4)
Lenny has rightly named her as Godmother, she is the only character who is near
to perfect, her flawless disposition has made her a godly figure in the entire novel, like a
mythical figure she emerged in the lives of people for helping them out of their miseries.
Godmother was not only a blessing in Lenny’s life but she also helped Ayah from
her calamitous conditions. She has tried all her bits to let Ayah get freed from the
abyss of miseries. The monument of love within Godmother turned into
vehement saviour, her untiring efforts lead Ayah’s torturous life to have a much tolerable
climax and Ayah ended up being at a Rehabilitation centre with the efforts of
Godmother and is met up to Lenny’s cousin's statement
If Godmother says she’ll help Ayah get away, she'll get her away.’(Sidhwa,1989, p.266)
While commenting upon the blood donating act of Godmother Lenny remarks,
Iam contain her blood will save many wounded lives. (Sidhwa,1989, p.210)
Along with being a divinely human, she is one of the most influential and
charismatic female character. She represents the feminist philosophy of author. She is
presented as a binary opposition to the character of Ayah. Expressive, bold and
resourceful. And is in contrast to her husband who is being introduced with
the adjective`docile`. Her feminine grace is revered by all and sundry .
Neighbours of all faiths drop in to talk: and to pay their respects. (Sidhwa,1989, p.209)
Godmothers espionage , her knowledge, her immeasurable capability to listen and cure
has made her a promising character who in Lenny’s words can move mountains from the
paths of her friends and at the same time she had the zeal to erect mountainous barriers
when need arise (211). A sheer epitome of a goddess.
Besides her godly larger than life attributes, what makes her an affablely human
character in the novel, is her unignorable wit. Her intelligence of humour has somewhat
eased the painful nerves pulsating in the background of the novel. She lightens the
elements of pathos in the story. Her reproaching confrontations with slavesister was
refreshing component in the tragic story.At one point
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sarcastically referring the slavesister for being late in making breakfast,she crowned her
as queen,
If bathing beauty didn’t take hours wallowing in her bath like Cleopatra,you would have
breakfast. (Sidhwa,1989, p.165)
She knew what pain is and she knew how it could be covered or cured with
little twist of words, so that they may sound less stingy and thus her humour worked
as diluting the painful events and phenomenas happening in the background . The
bravery with which she carries her womanhood didn't let her succumb to the grotesque
crimes happening around. Her humour had the power to raise the state of any
fallen woman. As when upon Lenny’s curiosity about fallen
woman she says lightheartedly,
What's a fallen woman? I ask Godmother.
‘A woman who falls off an aeroplane.’
But she is resoluted enough to save Ayah from the hell of prostitution.
Where at one hand Godmother is an embodiment of love and good heartedness at
the same time we can observe a transforming facet of her personality, the air of atrocities
and bestialities has extracted out another dimension of her loving form i-e an enraged
woman full of hatred for everything and every one worth hating as was the case of Ice-
candy man, her rebuking remarks for him shows her extreme and disgust squeezed out of
her heart in few sentences
I can have you lashed, you know? I can have you hung upside down in the Old Fort until
you rot....Get out of my sight, you whining haramzada!( Sidhwa,1989, p.249)
The raging storm within her was breeding the ache of her surroundings. She was
sensitively aware of her people and land being slaughtered in the wake of newly
discovered differences and hatred.
But one of the face of her personality remains a question mark i-e her
relationship with her sister who is always becomes the focal point of Godmother’s bitter
remarks, the woman who has always shown a loving gesture to strangers is unable to
maintain a normal relationship with her family members.

ICECANDY MAN

Dilnawaz or mostly referred to as the Icecandy man in the novel is one of the major
characters of the story. He is a street vendor who sells ice candies in summer and birds in
the winter season. He is Muslim. The importance of his character has let the author to
title the piece with his name. For more than half part of the novel he serves as the comic
relief for he is kind of good humored funny character who offers good deal of ludicrous
romantic affair with Ayah. He is introduced in the novel as one of the admirers of
Lenny’s Ayah. He claims to love Ayah , and for that he always find one or the other way
to be around her. He has mathematically calculated the things for instance gossips and
food in which Ayah has interest and then by catching Ayah’s attention he looks for tactics
to be close to her and touch her in anyway especially his toes have become expert in
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sneaking movements, sliding over Ayah’s body every now and then. He very well knows
the subject of chattering and convincing,

Talk to me for a while. . . Just a little while,’ (28), and Ayah’s heart melts over his
pleading.He has got such keenness for Ayah that sometimes it coincides with lunacy for
instance once upon hearing Ayahs refusal for watching a movie with him he becomes so
enraged that he threatened her by throwing down Lenny’s brother .

According to Lenny he has an inexhaustible fund of gossip and Ayah gets mesmerized in
the web of his beguiling words. And his art of chattyness has also served him to be a
good businessman. In short his words have earned him more profits than his mind.

He mastered the roguishness of everything business like. He worked and acted upon
business principles that's why he had got that cunningness in business dealings which
made him a good seller. He has got good brains for profits, like selling his birds he reads
the minds of Englishwomen and crafts the clever ideas and compel them to buy the birds.

They buy the birds by dozen.. (Sidhwa,1989, p.26)

And similarly his business mindedness is so much infused within his blood that even it
did not spare his love for Ayah, like with the change of season he changed his professions
so does he changed his heart with the change of situations. And treated her beloved as a
commodity to be profited by.

Being a good businessman he has enough quantity of hypocrisy he became lover when he
wished and became Muslim when need arise.

So what if you are a Sikh? Im a friend to my friends. .. And an enemy to their enemies. ..
And then a Mussulman! (Sidhwa,1989, p.122).

And with turn of events he turned his hearts and Ayah for him became a Hindu woman.
He has undergone a dramatic transformation in the wake of aggravated religious feelings
sprouting within him.

Once a lover became a bloodthirsty for Ayah. He let her get kidnapped and gave her to
the business of prostitution. A lover in him took up a bestial form. Where once he was
ired at the thought of Ayah having another lover, now he let her get molested by various
men. In his rage he not only crushed Ayah’s life, he also besmeared the word human. He
showed the unreliability of human intentions and actions, that one really thinks of God’s
creating skills for creating such an unpredictable creature. After getting her physically
assaulted by many he forcibly converted her and married her and then confesses his
defiled nature in following words,

Iam a man ! Only dogs are faithful ! If you want faith, let her marry a dog. (Sidhwa,1989,
p.248)
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Icecandy man appears to be a fickled personality who also in one sense represents
multiple facets hidden within a person. He presents a one complex equation between
human psyche and morality. Like ice his character hardens and then melts. From one
perspective he can be forgiven for his heinous crimes against Ayah, as like ice melting
has least control in the phenomena its the outside temperature. Similarly human’s moral
phenomena can thought to be contoured by outside factors. Here post modernist truth is
quite evident that there is no absolute truth or explanation for a single phenomena.

Hence admittedly he confess his human flaw infront of Godmother, he confides his
painful past with her and justify his business like and unfaithful character to his
background of brought up in a prostitution house. His pain has shaped his present, he has
learnt to love the way he had seen growing up. A love with divided loyalties. A love for
the sake of love. A love as per the sake of situation and advantage. He has learned to
work with heart and earn money instead of love. As Lenny says,

... I realise there is more to his turmoil than the rage and terror generated by Godmother’s
attack. (Sidhwa,1989, p.249)

It remained a mystery what made her change his mind why he let Ayah get molested and
then why did he married her, then what passion overtook him which made him follow her
to different places. All these unanswered questions refer to post modern discourse where
finding out precise meaning and reasons behind any event appears impossible or difficult.

And so was his end as was his birth. Unfairly justified. He lost Ayah. And after
losing her he becomes a mad lover and it was too late for him to repent. Ayah has gone
far away from him and in the hope of having her back he follows her there in futility just
to know that heart is not like ice once its hardened it can't melt.

AYAH

Ayah is also the major character of the novel. She is Lenny’s (narrator’s)nanny and serves
as the housemaid of Lenny’s family. She is a Hindu girl of about 18 years old. She is of
short stature having wheatish complexion.She is described by Lenny as a very charming
attractive girl gifted with abundant feminine grace. Her beauty is portrayed to be of that
much magnetism that wherever she goes she becomes the eye catcher for all and sundry.

Up and down, they look at her. Stub-handed twisted beggars and dusty old beggars on
crutches drop their poses and stare at her with hard, alert eyes. (Sidhwa,1989, p.3)

Not that she was admired by the lower class which Ayah belongs but even men belonging
to gentry , applaud her for her beauty for instance at one place the Godmother’s doctor
guests uttered flattering compliments for Ayah’s eyes. ( p.168)
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And because of her exceptional looks she has lot of admirers. And most clingy among
them is Ice-candy man.

Ayah’s beauty wouldn't have been narrated with such admiration if Lenny would not
have so much love for her. As much as she was adored by Lenny , Ayah also loved Lenny
with the core of her heart. She somewhat made up for Lenny’s disabled limb. Ayah used
to carry Lenny in her pram and they both were each other's companions as well as
confidants. Without Ayah, Lenny referred to herself as Ayahless (185) as if devoid of
some body part. Apart from being dedicated nanny , she is an obedient maid who serves
her mistress and masters with sincerity and love.

Ayah in the novel is that loving character who can be referred to as the propellant of the
story. She is individually passive in the whole story but she is the one who is cause of
many events and similarly suffers the effects of many situations in the story. She is not
only central to Lenny’s world but even in novel she possesses the key role.

Apart from being propellant she is a character which wins over readers attachment,
for she is a character which causes restlessness among characters in the novel and
consequently in the readers. She is full of the vigour of youth. She has love for life and
everything good in life like food, movies, massages. Her most amusing part is her love
for gossips, for which she even tolerates the clinginess of Dilnawaz. While at one place
we find her engrossed seriously in the gossips of Ice candy man,

Hai! No! Says Ayah, looking appropriately grave and scandalized and for a moment
permitting the comb to cease its struggle with the tangles. (Sidhwa,1989, p.124)

Her gossipy nature along with bouncy walk won many hearts. But she was gravely in
love of only Body Masseur. But with the shift of fate, things start turning against her.

When events in the story took a drastic and violent turn, Ayah became one of poor
sufferers. She became the one victim to be burnt in the flames of religious riots. Her
former lover (Dilnawaz) dragged her to the worst of the destinies. She was being sold by
him to the business of prostitution. And once full of life Ayah became like a soulless
body. When Godmother and Lenny visited her, the differences of life and death within
her were quite eminent in Ayah’s looks.

Where have the radiance and the animation gone. Can the soul be extracted from its
living body? (Sidhwa,1989, p.260.)

Where at one hand Ayah became a puppet at the hands of men. She became a living
picture of exposing men at position of wrecking havoc. Where Ayah can be seen as the
paradox for desire of the sick sexuality of men of all race, religion and status, her
molestation represents the perverted sexual behaviours which was hideously present in
almost every male character in the novel.Women and children (like Ranna) : the most
vulnerable ones, were used to serve and satisfy not only sexual lust but also the power
lust, and made communal riots a tool to appease their hunger.
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Where Ayah at one place was devastated by men, on the other hand women gave her
strength, she dared to let herself set free from the prison of grievances. Over the lavish
life of imprisonment she chose freedom. She was being wretched by men but was saved
by women. Her character is the triumph of womanhood.

As asserted by Chaudhary fariha (2013) in her paper about Sidhwa’s novels,

Women in IceCandy Man come to realize the oppressive and biased attitudes which
prevents them to define their identity according to the whims of males of the society..
where molestation of women bodies under the guise of partition riots made female
characters to awaken to feminist conciousness and thus they challenged the
commodification and degradation of their bodies and were succeeded in gaining control
over their bodies (Chaudhary, 2013, p.36).

MOTHER

Lenny’s mother is one of the minor characters of the story. She is a beautiful woman in
appearance with perfectly shaped slender nose and fuller lips having a touch of coldness
and innocence to her beauty which makes her ‘beautiful beyond bearing’ (42). She is a
loving mother and a loving wife. Particularly for Lenny she has become over concious
and pays special heed to her needs. She took Lenny’s polio treatment very seriously and
was determined to let Lenny’s disease get treated with best of the treatments and doctors.
She regularly takes her for the check ups. She is so worried and disturbed for Lenny’s
limping that she sometimes blames this condition upon herself as she is found saying,

It's my fault. . . I neglected her-left her to the care of Ayahs (Sidhwa,1989, p.16).

But despite having being so careful and attentive towards Lenny, she is not donated by as
much love as Lenny bestows upon Godmother. Lenny thinks her concerns are because
she is guilty as she says at one place,

My mother guilt-driven attention is where it belongs that is upon the steeply fallen arch
of my foot. (5) Her concern for Lenny outweighs her love. She tries to shower her all
emcompassing love upon Lenny but in lenny’s eyes her love switches sometimes it gets
busy with chores sometimes with her husband , her love is not enough to satisfy Lenny’s
unquenchable need for love and attention and Lenny calls it treacherous (42).

Along with playing a good role of a mother, she is also seen having a romantic love
chemistry with her husband. She calls him Jan: life (10). We witness many teasingly
loving moments when she playfully talks to him and sometimes irritates him, ... after
grabbing money from him with misty smile, she blows him kisses (70). Her love and her
expression of that love makes her a romantically entertaining character in the novel.
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Besides being an amusement material in the novel, she is among characters who
acted out to bring the satisfying climax to Ayah’s miserable life. She dared to help those
women who had been kidnapped by the evil doers who could be labeled as more beasts
and less humans, Lenny’s mother tried to save those women to be rehabilitated or get
back to their relatives. As Godmother proclaims to Lenny,

Mummy and your aunt rescue kidnapped women. When they find them, they send them
back to their families or to the Recovered Women’s Camps (Sidhwa,1989, p.238).

She despite having fears of being caught and miserable fate for herself and her family she
did her best to help out the friends in distress. She becomes one of the women who assert
women empowerment by using whatever means and resources to get rid of tormenting
scenario or in her case helping others getting rid. She not only has motherly affection for
Lenny but her motherhood encompasses to other women who were being devastated in
wake of communal riots and became the most easy prey to satisfy the sexual and power
lust.

DOCTOR BHARUCHA

Colonel Bharucha is one of the minor characters in the novel. He is Lenny’s doctor. He is
of awesome personality and has an appearance that of an Englishman. He has got an aura
of competence around him. And because of that he appears to be a revered figure in the
novel. Along with impression making personality he is an exceptionally well versed in
whatever he does even his eyes spark with high level seriousness and professionalism. As
descripted by Lenny,

His eyes are complex hazel. They are direct as animal's. He can read my mind.
(Sidhwa,1989, p.4)

And because of that he appeared to be a revered figure in the story. Especially Lenny’s
mother respect and obeys him immensely and she promptly acts on whatever words said
by him, like a written prescription.

Sometimes his sincerity to his profession makes him an infuriated being. And he chides
the patients with rage and anger. And his austerity shows his dedication for his work, as
Lenny asserts about him ‘the more he roars and scolds the more likely he is to effect a
cure (12). And at many places in the novel we find him roaring at Lenny and her mother
while treating her limb. And it always worked as Lenny and her mother dutifully listened
and obeyed what doctor says and it made her polio less-difficult.

Doctor Bharucha along with having professional expertise he also possessed great
leadership and thus brilliant oratory skills and therefore he has been chosen the President
of Parsee community in Lahore. And he is politically well aware of the present and past
more specifically of his own community. He has great deal of concern for his community
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and is a religious enthusiast. He is concious of the vulnerability of his community and

believes that strategy of being neutral is what that can have them a safe place among
plethora of beliefs fighting for power, as during one of the meetings he is found saying,

But as you see we have to move with the times..

As long as we do not interfere we have nothing to fear. (Sidhwa,1989, p.39)

Where from one side Col. Bharucha is seen to be a clever and strategic leader on the
other hand he appears to be a coward who prefers his people to remain uninvolved and go
with the flow of the air around, he follows the rule of favouring either sides of dispute
and used to say a particular maxim for his attitude’ of running with the hare and hunt with
the hounds’ which is a being pronounced differently by his listeners as running with
hounds and hunting with hare, which is bit distorted form of the original proverb
referring to the fact that the Parsee people are being left out because of this misdirected
leadership. As he advises his people to stay at home and thus out of trouble. (37). His
strategy to a peaceful survival comes with a price of being detached and submissive. The
fear of the history has kept them from the glory of struggle. Doctor is quite well aware
that keeping in mind their political position its foolishness to fight for anything as the
power game might conclude into a gob of mess, as he apprehended the fears as,

Hindus, Muslims and even Sikhs are going to jockery for power: and if you jokers jump
into the middle you'll be mangled into chutney. (Sidhwa,1989, p.36)

He prefers to be on the safe side and having an intelligent leap. The historical pains of his
community are still lingering within him and he wants to save his community from
rewriting the painful history and prefers a struggle-less and uncontroversial present. As
he quotes at one place,

As long as we conduct our lives quietly, as long as we present no threat to anybody, we

will prosper right here (Sidhwa,1989, p.40).

Col. Bharucha’s such docile behaviour sometimes make him act like a cynic. He at
times acts furiously towards minor things and say such words which are
incomprehensible for instance while mentioning polio he blames Britishers as the cause
of this disease (Sidhwa,1989, p.16).

And similarly at one place while upon inquired by Lenny’s mother about her future, he
chauvinistically comments that she'll marry and have children with a care free life
(Sidhwa,1989, p.15).

Deep inside he harbours the feelings that are in conflict with what he says,’ I have
something against everybody’, he declares (Sidhwa,1989, p.37). But keeping aside all his
inner conflicts he has proved his marvel at everything he does, quite convincingly.
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IMAM DIN

Imam Din is the cook for Lenny’s family. He is Muslim by religion. He is genial faced
and massive and robust in stature. He is a humorous character in the novel. He is kind of
person who rarely gets angry but makes other angry with his aweful antics. He has weird
habit which makes him ludicrously mysterious, for he is in habit of grabbing anything
softs that enters the kitchen whether its human or fluffy animals, his this behaviour set
people bewildered and confused. He excuses away his strange behaviour by naming it as
his naughtiness. His is sixty five years old and because of his old age his offensive and
nasty behaviours are being treated with latitude.

Other than his this annoying habit he has another hobby of getting married, he is fond of
marrying, he is being widowed three times and has married four times (49). And is also
very fond of Ayah and does not let any chance miss from flirting with her as he playfully
comments I’ll never be too old to bother you (50).

Apart from his annoying disagreeable behaviour he is quite a tolerable person and
when Lenny and Ayah have any complaints they prefer referring to Imam Din. He has
taken Lenny to his village quite a few times. And he shows his kind gestures towards
Ayah by treating her with lavish cuisines.

And like everyone else in the novel he owns his share of pretence and hypocrisy. In
the wake of clashes and in the fray of religious fervor even he cloaks over Islam so as to
perform his religion and showing of his loyalties. As narrated he used to take Friday
afternoons off in order to say the Friday prayers (Sidhwa,1989, p.93).

But his sincerity to people appears to be more than his loyalty with religion unlike
Icecandy man he did not let Ayah’s hiding place known to the zealots, and in order to
save her, he even taken a fake oath upon God, similarly he also saved Hari by telling the
rascals that he has converted. He did not think about the consequences of a wrongful oath
for he has very well apprehended the wrath of men upon men which appeared more
horrifying to him than any form of cruelty. He was sane enough to think that religion has
least to do in the havoc the men has caused in the name of religion. He has not let bygone
the memories, of his village ,he had with his Sikh and Hindu friends where they used to
live peacefully back then.

SLAVESISTER

She is sister of Godmother and is also called as Mini Aunt by Lenny but in most of the
novel she is referred as slavesister. She lives with Godmother and her husband. We see
right from the start that slavesister and Godmother share a good deal of sibling rivalry.
 13

They are always on teasing and annoying mode. In this rivalry slave sister’s character is
submissive to Godmother. She listens to her sister’s degrading comments with patience
most of the time. She in one sense presents the flip side of Godmother’s personality,
where we see nothing of the sort which is godly or motherly. Her silence makes things
more painful for her thereby empowering Godmother dominance in the house and letting
her boss over her. Her submissive nature hints towards her level of patience, her
helplessness which has led her to live in this suppressive relationship. And it appears,
only reason she is there is for tolerating the insults, like at one place Godmother chides
her quite insultingly
If you think you have too much to cope with you can live someplace else.
Don't think I've not been observing your tongue of late! If you're not careful, I'll snip it
off. . . . God knows, you've grown older— and fatter—but not up! This child here has
more sense than you (Sidhwa,1989, p.164).
The more Godmother tries to prove her acts kiddish the more she tries to act and
speak maturely, she is quite well aware of her lesser abilities and position and by showing
off her sense of integrity she tolerates and pinpoints her sister’s underside qualities as at
one place slavesister tells her that she has become vulgar(166). And sometimes asserting
her part of authority she gives advises to Godmother but in the end all she gets are
insulting confrontation and all she does is mumbling to herself.
She has got traditional approach of thinking and keeps directing Godmother to do
things in an appropriate way like when Godmother decides to go to red light area to meet
Ayah, she forbade her to do so, not realizing that it could save Ayah’s life. In this sense
the teasing confrontation between Slavesister and Godmother symbolically shows that
there always will be a clash between traditionalists and modernists. They hardly can
agree with each other’s views. And similarly with the changing times, if traditionalist are
not able to make pace with what is modern the result could be that of suppression and
subordination.
Apart from being a punching bag for Godmother, her arguments with her sister
add to the comic relief in the novel. She is entitled to readers sympathies at the same time
her presence in the novel is the reason which makes unmatched wit of Godmother and of
writer to be portrayed quite expressively.

REFERENCES

Chaudhary,Fariha(2013)’Hiding And Seeking Identity: The female Figures in the

novels Of Pakistani Female Writers’ University Of Huddersfeild Repository
Available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/files/126/13641020.pdf

Sidhwa,Bapsi.(1989) Ice Candy Man. 2 Ed. India: Penguin Books

Turkel,Daniel Gregory(2009)’ The Message of Surrealist Art:’

Available at: https://danturkel.com/papers/surrealistart.pdf