Dislocation and Sense of Loss in Baspi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-Man

This research paper explores how Baspi Sidhwa employs the genre of partition novel in her Ice-Candy- Man, known as Cracking India. She exposes Pakistani, Indian views on partition and Lenny, girl narrator’s perspective on the great communal divide showing dislocation emotional turmoil and sense of loss. Sidhwa probes that partition as an offshoot of fundamentalism sparked by hardening communal attitudes. She shares her view on the calamities of partition and she emphasizes the vulnerability of human lives. This relentlessly divided friends, families, lovers and neighbors in both countries. In Ice-Candy-Man, are the characters from all communities- Hindus, Muslim, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis. Thus a multiple perspective of partition as viewed by affected people. However, what really distinguishes Baspi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-Man is the prism of Parsi sensitivity in which she depicts cataclysmic event. Another fascinating aspect of this novelist the use of the child narrator, the precocious Parsi girl, Lenny The impact of violence on the girl child narrator, Lenny, who depicts the horrors of partition, the role of rumor, the dangers of communal frenzy and the rise of obscurantism are all aspects of the partition, which reflects in Ice‑Candy-Man. And it is the subsequent sub-divisions how the novelist employs witty banter, irony and parody in her sensitive handling of the impact of the partition on the Parsi community, the girl narrator and deteriorating human relationship. It is these aspects that make the novel unusual otherwise the cruelty, the horrors, the human toll and dislocation of partition