The News on Sunday interviewed this award-winning novelist during her last visit to Pakistan. Excerpts are as follows:

The News on Sunday: Do you think you had an advantage as a Parsi while writing Ice Candy Man?

Bapsi Sidhwa: You see Parsis are a very small community. They are all over the world. However, they live as minority wherever they are. In Ice Candy Man, it was important to see things neutrally. As a Parsi, I feel I became more objective. Ice Candy Man is the first fiction book that highlights the condition of women at that time. Almost 20,000 women were raped.

TNS: How did you feel when Deepa Mehta decided to produce a movie based on your novel?

BS: Ice Candy Man was published in India as Cracking India. She read my novel and talked to me and said that's exactly what she was looking for. She understood the theme of the novel and the character of Lanny. The novel is about the condition of ordinary people at the time of partition and what ridiculous things people were doing in the name of religion. It shows how people's inner evil can come out when there is law and order problem.

TNS: Are you satisfied with Deepa Mehta's film?

BS: Movies are always different from what is written in novels. The main reason behind this is the time constraint. In a book you can elaborate things. Readers feel a special connection with the books and they are different from the audiences of film. Film has visual images which have more impact and a different type of audience. That's why when the movie came out four years after the novel, I received objections from individuals from Hindu and Muslim community defending their communities. The novel is free from any controversy though. Those who read it understand it. Especially the end of the movie puts a question mark in the viewer's mind. I did not suggest the ending.

TNS: Why is the main character of your novel a child?

BS: Children have little prejudice. Lanny has naturally become neutral as a child. Moreover, she is Parsi. She can easily interact with Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims without becoming part of them. She can see things more objectively and intensely feels things turning. Lanny is a very complex child. The child is reflecting the adults' characters and how she sees the adult world as a child. It becomes very boring when you have no sophistication behind the character. Readers lose interest.

TNS: Why are your novels titled differently in different countries?

BS: Ice Candy Man in America is taken as a drug peddler. People might think that the book is about drugs. The only reason behind publishing the book as Cracking India was to remove misconceptions about the book. So was the case of The Bride. It became The Pakistani Bride in America.

TNS: How do you feel when Pakistani readers don't appreciate their literature?

BS: I feel really bad when I see that people in my country don't appreciate their own writers until America and Europe give a testimony about them. In India it is the opposite. They acknowledge their own writers and prefer reading them. That's why they are so famous all over the world.

TNS: Do you think writing in English widens your audience?

BS: I had polio so I was not sent to school. I was a lonesome child. I was brought up by an Anglo-Indian Ayah. I read extensively. I can speak very fluent Urdu and a bit of Punjabi too but the only language I can read and write, is English. When I had read enough Russian, American and English literature I realised that I know much about their society and they don't know about us. We have become faceless.

English is the language people speak and read all over the world and it was an easy medium for me to express in. My novels are taught in American universities in post colonial literature, comparative literature and fiction.

TNS: What difficulties did you face in the beginning?

BS: My first novel was The Crow Eaters and it was based on the Parsi community. People at that time were expecting dull and serious literature, whereas this was a humorous novel. Some Parsis objected to it.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz read the novel and suggested that I get it published. No publisher was ready to publish the book. A journalist reviewed it badly. I received many rejection notes from publishers and decided to take the book abroad. The book was published in England in 1988.

TNS: In tough times who gave you moral support?

BS: Faiz Ahmed Faiz encouraged me to get the book published. When I told him about its rejection, he said, "How dare they not publish it?" He suggested that the book should be published in the USSR. He wrote his comments on a copy of the novel:" Her community may or may not be liked but we love it."

Ashfaq Ahmed appreciated me for what I wrote. He also talked to the journalist who reviewed the book badly. He had total acceptance for female writers, what others lacked. He said that women are very brave. They bring up children and write so well too. He and Bano Qudsia accompanied me to the book launching ceremony in Islamabad.

TNS: How has the feedback been?

BS: Once The Crow Eaters was published I got wonderful remarks from the US. My people stopped talking about me but when I got Sitara-e-Imtiaz…Now I feel very good when I see people love me for what I write, especially when I meet young girls who read my novels.

TNS: Whenever you were discouraged, did you step back?

BS: When I wrote The Bride, publishers discouraged me. If anybody had criticised my writing skill then, most probably I would have stopped writing. There was an economic issue with the title of the book and all rejection notes were telling me that "Pakistan is too remote in time and place for the novel to be commercially viable". In America they do every thing for money. During the period of rejection I completed The Crow Eaters. In Pakistan, there was no English publisher at that time. I published the novel myself. I went from shop to shop to ask them to keep my book on shelves for sale. Nobody accepted the strange title. I sent my self-published book to Jonathan Cape (Agent) and after two weeks they showed their acceptance. This was my first novel that was published. After two years of its publication The Pakistani Bride was also published. After that I stopped writing for a couple of years.

TNS: How did you decide to teach in American universities?

BS: Doctors advised me to stay at home. I was a lonesome child who read many books, mainly literature. I had taken no classes in creative writing. I naturally knew how to write and did not face difficulty in making a plot. I write spontaneously. I just put the pen on paper and it writes.

When Philip Lopate asked me to teach in creative writing classes, I got confused as I only had a BA degree from Punjab University. He said that you have two novels and they are your two huge PhDs. Then I started teaching there. This was the first time I learned how to teach creative writing.

TNS: As a woman writer what difficulties did you face?

BS: If I were writing on common issues, there might be no criticism. Men writers do not accept powerful writing of a woman. They criticised me badly for what I wrote. They tried to degrade my work. When I wrote about Lahore and partition, they had objection to how could I write on such subjects as I am a Parsi. If I am Parsi so what? This is my land. I feel energised when I am in Lahore. I love to write about Lahore.

Penguin asked me to write an anthology of Lahore. I quickly accepted the proposal. I love to write about Lahore. My writings on Lahore were published as Beloved City and the book was also published as City of Sin and Splendour. I adore Lahore.

TNS: Do you think you influenced other writers. How?

BS: Yes. Especially in India, writers like Vikram Seth, Rushdie and Arundhati Roy got influenced by my work.

The Crow Eaters gave a new trend of including Parsi characters in novel. People used to write in a dull, serious and tragic manner. They started writing humorous characters.

TNS: What is the image of Pakistanis in America?

BS: In America many Indian professors are teaching whereas, Pakistani teachers can be counted on fingers. Fauzia Afzal, Sara Suleri and Waqas Khawaja are teaching there. Many Indians are teaching in American universities and consequently their literature is getting popular among students. We are far behind the world in education.

TNS: How do you see new writers?

BS: Many Pakistani writers are getting fame abroad. Beena Shah, Uzma Aslam Khan, Sarah Suleri are writing good literature. I must say Meatless Days by Sarah Suleri is the best autobiographical book written.

We have English publishers in Pakistan now. People are writing and publishing in English.

Mohsin Hamid, Rukhsana Ahmed, Muneeza Shamsi and Kamila Shamsi have written so well. Daniyal Moeenuddin has currently started writing and he is very good at it too.

TNS: How do you feel about the state of women in Pakistan?

BS: I feel really bad when I find women oppressed in my country. We have a beautiful land. The world is proving us a failed state. They don't know we have millions of safe people. Extreme elements are destroying the peace of the land.

Those who are oppressing women are cowards.

Talibanisation and Afghan influence has produced violence in the country. Education is necessary for women. Imprisonment of women has taken away their initiative and sapped their creativity. I don't understand why they are so afraid of empowering the women. Our nation is being fooled.

But did Hashr craft a different kind of drama when he became his own impresario? Not really. Except for Rustam-o-Sohrab, the only play which does not have song and dance sequences, Hashr retained the dramatic pattern he had learned and developed under the Parsis.

There has only been one notable period in the history of our language when drama came to the fore. It began during the brief rein of Wajid Ali Shah just before the middle of the 19th century and it lasted until the end of the 1920's. The substantial dramatic output of these 75 years - over 4000 plays - could not have been possible if it weren't for the enterprising Parsi impresarios of Bombay.

These impresarios, who initially staged plays in Gujerati were a shrewd lot. They were quick to learn that melodrama (highly popular in England at the time) would be ideally suited to the temperament of our people. It was their astute sense of commerce that told them that Urdu, with its rhetorical flourish, and its vast repertoire of Masnavis, (which told tales of unrequited love) was the ideally suitable language for their theatrical venture. A number of Munshis (the term used for a dramatist) were commissioned to adapt not only the popular 'East Lynne' type of plays, but a few classical texts as well.

They also knew that what the audience wanted was a spectacle. They concentrated on creating eye-catching effects; the scenery was lavish and so were the costumes. In their productions gods could descend from the heavens and sink, through trap doors, into the abyss. If Herbert Beerbohm Tree could have ducks and drakes and floating barges in his theatre, so could they. The billboards announcing a new production specially emphasised that the company was equipped with "New Scenery".

It is uncanny that so much of commedia dell'arte crept into the makings of the Urdu theatre. The comic action, performed by stock characters, the witty exchange between the high-born, the young couple's love being thwarted by their parents or guardians, were all essential ingredients of commedia dell'arte. Even the most popular character of the Italian comedy of art, the braggart, who boasted of his bravery and his exploits on the battlefield, but ran away from the sign of any danger, became a part of our theatrical lore. The only difference was that they didn't wear masks as in commedia dell'arte.

In the very beginning of the Urdu Theatre, a play would just have an opening and a finale chorus, and these were chaste, classical melodies. When the idea of inserting arias in between dramatic scenes took root, the composers were compelled to come off their perch and turn out tunes, which, though based on classical ragas, had to have a popular appeal. Also, a song had to last no more that a few minutes, which did not allow them any time to dwell upon the Alap, the foundation of a raga.

Logistics, more than any thing else, forced them to come up with a four or five minute number which had to be not just appealing and racy but hummable. The Parsi impresarios knew their business. They knew that the secret of a successful production was to bring back the spectators to see the same show for a second or even a third time. My father was so captivated by the songs of Bilwa Manga, that he saw it no less than eight times.

From its inception, Urdu drama adopted the Sanskritic convention of including comic scenes no matter what the nature of the play. Soon there were comic numbers sung by the lower order. They were, usually, duets. "Aa ja piyari, vari, nayari, jaan hamari, shaan hamari, nain katari"…. sang the cocky servant to the saucy maid. The words had to be delivered sharply and crisply so the tune had to be devoid of any ornate musical embellishments. The melodic line was introduced in the riposte (always a rebuff) and then again in the refrain, which then became a duet or a chorus.

By the end of the 19th century, morals and conventions became more rigid than ever in the name of good taste. The Urdu playwrights (who indulged in gross bawdiness during the comic interludes) proudly proclaimed that their work was a moral treatise. They established a reputation for prudery which was destined to be, forever, associated with Urdu drama. Even the formidable Hashr fell prey to it.

Adultery or the desire for adultery was the main occupation of nearly all the secondary characters in the plays written over a fifty year period. "Advantage rarely came of it", but it gave the author a chance to moralise towards the end. I have recently gone through 48 plays written during the last two decades of the 19th century and have not come across one in which the plot is not constructed around the carnal designs of important and unimportant characters. Having given the audience dollops of licentiousness, in prose, the author condemned it severely, in poetry

The dramas of Raunaque, Habab, Zarif, Murad Abdullah, Ahsan, Betab, Talib, are all replete with monotonous magniloquence punctuated by lengthy songs and unrelated scenes of coarse comedy. Most of the Parsi actors, as well as some theatre managers, specialised in playing low comedy. We know for a fact that the impresario, Sohrabjee Ogra made Agha Hashr write for him the part of Khair Salla in Khubsoorat Bal' (the Beautiful witch) and Fazihta in Khwab-e-Hast (The Dream of Existence).

The Parsis have rendered invaluable services to drama, in particular, Urdu drama. The patient, persistent and courageous manner in which they went about initiating modern drama in Urdu is a feat for which we should be deeply indebted to them.

The playwrights of the era never transgressed the moral code of their society. True, they filled the stage with tarts and courtesans who ensnared men with their wiles, but that was because their audience wouldn't dream of watching a drama without these ingredients. The playgoers loved to feast their eyes on the beautifully coiffed and exquisitely dressed, brazen, flirtatious women (even though they were sometimes played by men) and their alluring dances.

Hashr too, followed the same pattern (Even his adaptations of Shakespeare's Measure For Measure and King Lear have a bevy of chorus girls prancing and preening in between the darker scenes), but compared to his predecessors and his contemporaries, his poetry was finer, his dialogue had a ring and sheen and it was less verbose. And at least in one play, Rustam Aur Saurab (more about it anon, if only because it was a monumental flop when it was first presented), he created a quality of heightened prose, which is unparalled in our drama. A convincing proof that he alone, amongst all the other dramatists of his age, could paint pictures as "sharply as the mid-day shadow upon marble".