An American Brat (Bapsi Sidhwa)

 

An American Brat

-Bapsi Sidhwa

Essay

About the Author:

Bapsi Sidhwa (born on 11 August 1938) is a Pakistani novelist of Gujarati Parsi Zoroastrian descent who writes in English and is a resident in the United States. She is best known for her collaborative work with Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta: Sidhwa wrote both the 1991 novel Ice Candy Man which served as the basis for Mehta's 1998 film Earth as well as the 2006 novel Water: A Novel, on which Mehta's 2005 film Water is based. A documentary about Sidhwa's life called "Bapsi: Silences of My Life" was released on the official YouTube channel of " The Citizens Archive of Pakistan" on 28 October 2022 with the title " First Generation -Stories of partition: Bapsi Sidhwa".  She currently resides in Houston in the US. She describes herself as a "Punjabi-Parsi". Her first language is Gujarati, her second language is Urdu, and her third language is English. She can read and write best in English, but she is more comfortable talking in Gujarati or Urdu, and often translates literally from Gujarati or Urdu to English.

 

Introduction:

Bapsi Sidhwa is a prominent writer of Pakistan Diaspora. Her major works reflect her personal experience of the Partition of Indian subcontinent, abuse against women, immigration to the US, membership in the Parsi or Zoroastrian community, and other such related issues and concerns. Basically, Diaspora is an experience of dislocation and physical displacement from the motherland and it raises socio-cultural and psychosomatic identity questions which have led to a hybrid culture and a new process of cultural assimilation. Peculiar experiences caused by migration and native communities, rootlessness become a major issue of the post-colonial society and a prime concern of the post-colonial writers; and hence, it is also regarded as an identity crisis as well as search for identity. “An American Brat” is set partly in Lahore and partly in the United States is the story of a young Parsi girl’s Americanization. “An American Brat” is a novel which focuses on the diasporic experiences and their effects on the characters, especially its protagonist, Feroza.

 

Feroza’s Family: The story line of “An American Brat” is simple, lucid and pacy. Bapsi Sidhwa chronicles the adventures of a young Pakistani Parsi girl, Firoza Ginwalla in America. Her Lahore-based family, send her to the USA, for a three-month vacation, to broaden her outlook on life. They are concerned at Feroza’s conservative attitudes, which stem from Pakistani’s rising tide of fundamentalism, during the reign of the late President Zia-ul-Haq. Her mother Zareen is perturbed that her daughter Feroza has adopted an un-Parsilike orthodoxy in her attitude and outlook, thereby making her a misfit in her community. Cyrus Ginwalla, the father is apprehensive about another kind of loss of identity. He fears that his susceptible young daughter would fall in love and marry a non-Parsi. So, the solution is to send the girl for a holiday to the USA. She will become ‘modern’ in the truest sense of word. By thinking for herself she will challenge traditional views, static orthodoxy and grow beyond the confines of communality, and norms of a patriarchal society. Bapsi Sidhwa shows that the journey to the USA was supposedly a learning process but instead it makes her “too modern” for her patriarchal and seemingly liberal family. So, in this novel of self-realization, the self-awareness that Feroza Ginwalla acquires, ironically isolates her from her Parsi heritage.

 

Feroza’s First Encounter: During the course of the story, Sidhwa touches upon almost all those aspects that new immigrants and visitors to the United States experience at first hand – or hear recounted to them by others. Some of these incidents are meant to be funny, others critical of the unpleasant and even ugly underside of America. Thus, Feroza’s first experience of the United States is her encounter with the immigration official who badges her and tries to get her to admit that she has come to get married and the uncle is not at all uncle. The official gets her so upset that she ends up in tears, shouting that she will go back to her own country. Manek warns her to keep quiet and only barely manages to persuade the official of their true relationship and that he guarantees that she will return to Pakistan when her visa expires.

 

Feroza’s Transformation:

Feroza, after getting a crash course from Manek about how to survive in the States is soon on her way. She decides to join a college in Twin Falls, Idaho. Manek is happy with her choice because it is in Mormon territory. The ban on liquor, striptease, prostitution, the fact that coffee is not served in most restaurant, means Feroza would not be exposed to the free and easy ways of the rest of America. Nevertheless, even in Twin Falls, Feroza, through her roommate, Jo, is exposed to the underside of America. She soon picks up Jo’s manner of speaking bad words. Even in Twin Falls, it is possible to get liquor  and Feroz soon initiated into drinking. Jo picks up men casually and while Feroza is still restrained, she also enjoys going out with Jo and flirting “modestly” with strange young men. While she does wonder what her family will think of her, seeing the transformation that she imbibed. She even commits the cardinal sin of smoking – to Parsis fire is the symbol of Ahura Mazda and smoking an act of desecration. In depicting the Americanization of Feroza, Sidhwa contrasts the confined atmosphere og girls’ lives in the subcontinent with the freedom they enjoy in the States.

 

Feroza’s Love Affairs:

In the States, however, Feroza discovers that there are no restrictions and sexual relations are casually entered into. Feroza finds herself drawn to a young Indian named Shashi. They kiss and indulge in mild petting when they are alone, but their relationship is somehow strained because of the “taboos that governed the behaviour of decent unmarried girls and desi men”. Shashi is more attracted to Gwen a young black roommate of Feroza, and Gwen, the mistress of a while married man, is not averse flirting with Shashi. Knowing the affair between Shashi and Gwen, Feroza breaks up from Shashi, yet she does not break off the friendship existing between them. Later Feroza meets David Press whom she meets when she goes to look at a car he is selling. In her attempt to describe Feroza’s falling in love with David, “golden, languishing god” according to Feroza.

 

Zareen’s Attempts: Feroza believes that underneath the religious and cultural differences, she and David are alike, but Zareen, Feroza’s mother does not think so. When Feroza discloses her intention of marrying David, Zareen rushes to America to prevent this unsuitable marriage. She brings money to buy off David. She tries to explain Feroza that by marrying David she would cut herself off from her family and religion. She would never be allowed to enter the Parsi place of worship, never be allowed to attend the funeral rites of her parents.

 

Despite her outburst, Zareen wavers and starts questioning the strictures against interfaith marriage. Parsi men can marry outside the faith but still remain Parsi but Parsi women who marry non-Parsi are termed to excommunicated. Zareen sets about preventing the marriage of her daughter and David. She is unable to buy off David, because overwhelmed by the shopping malls, she spends all her money on a frenzied shopping spree. So she has resorted to other tactics to prevent the marriage. She advises Feroza to forget about David and marriage but to concentrate on her studies. Then she explains David about the Parsi culture and the wedding in Parsi community and how different the culture of him from theirs. Finally, David who wants to lead a peaceful married life, keeps himself away from Feroza. David’s attraction n for Feroza weakens.

 

Feroza’s Reaction: Initially Feroza feels depressed but gradually recovers, strengthened in her resolve to continue there. She has experienced freedom in America and refuses to live without it thereafter. She realizes that she has changed too much to even go back to Pakistan. She does not agree to an arranged marriage with one of the three nice boys chosen for her by her parents but decides to stay back in the USA. The migrant Feroza has adjusted herself well to a different culture and “there would be not going back for her”.

 

Conclusion:

Thus Sidhwa’s “An American Brat” deals with the subject of the ‘cultural shock’ and the later transformation that any expatriate experience in the West. Like in other novels, in this novel also the Parsi rituals and customs are brought out by Sidhwa. Thus, even as Sidhwa writes about how the sixteen-year-old Feroza Ginwalla becomes, what her mother, horrified at the change in her daughter, calls “an American brat”, the culture and politics of Pakistan and the joys and sorrows of being a Parsi woman remains Sidhwa’s concomitant concerns.