Internationally acclaimed and award-winning author Bapsi Sidhwa led lectures Monday at Lee Hall Auditorium and Tuesday at the Honors Forum room of Griffis Hall. The lectures were hosted by the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center and Shackoul’s Honors College. Associate provost of academic affairs Jerry Gilbert introduced Sidhwa to the audience at Monday’s lecture.
Sidhwa has written five novels that have received critical acclaim.
Sidhwa opened the lecture with a few readings from one of her novels, “Cracking India,” which tells the story of the partition of India and Pakistan after the British left.
“The British had a big role to play in this – it was the British Empire, after all,” Sidhwa said. “I wanted to tell this story because it defines our history.”
After reading, she showed a clip from the film “Earth,” which was based on “Cracking India.” Part of the clip depicted a train scene. Sidhwa said the scene was an “ugly thing that happened that brought evil into people’s hearts.”
Sidhwa went on to discuss the partition of India and the harsh treatment many women went through during that time.
“One of the big things that happened during the partition that no one talked about was that there were hundreds of thousands of kidnappings of women,” she said.
Some of the women were recovered and brought to shelters, but many of them married their kidnappers and had children, she said.
They had to suffer through being separated from their families twice. Also, the women who were returned to their families and societies were seen as defiled.
Next, Sidhwa read some excerpts from her novel “An American Brat,” which is about a young Parsi girl who comes to America when she is 16 and tries to defy her background by marrying a Jewish man.
After the second reading, a clip from the film “Water,” the namesake and inspiration of her latest novel, was shown.
“Water” tells the story of an eight-year-old widow that is sent to a refuge for widows.
Sidhwa discussed how widows are treated in India and many of the issues facing women there. “When a son is born, there is joy,” she said. “When a daughter is born they weep.”
Women are seen as huge burdens, she said. One excerpt from “Water” illustrated the role cast upon women during that time.
“Outside of marriage a wife has no existence … she is created to have sons …,” Sidhwa read.
At the end of the lecture, students had the opportunity to ask Sidhwa specific questions. These questions led to discussion of the current conditions of Pakistan and India and the cultural differences of the two countries.
“Pakistan and India have become two very different countries,” she said.
She spoke more on women’s issues in Pakistan and India.
“With education, things will improve and are improving [for women],” Sidhwa said.
The Holmes Cultural Diversity Center presented Sidhwa with a gift to show appreciation for the lecture and her visit to MSU.
Sidhwa accepted the gift and complimented MSU for having an organization like the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center.
“It’s good,” she said. “It shows we share so much in common.”
Freshman elementary education major Kelsey Clayborne said she is grateful for getting the chance to hear Sidhwa’s lecture.
“I think it’s important for students to attend events that promote cultural interests,” she said.
Freshman elementary education major Kelly Roberts said the most interesting thing was when she talked about the widows.
“It was so intense how they were treated harshly,” she said.
“The lecture was really interesting,” junior risk management, insurance and financial planning major Kristina Hodges said. “I didn’t realize what the women of that culture went through.”
After the program concluded, students and those who attended the lecture had the opportunity to purchase Sidhwa’s novels and have Sidhwa autograph them.
Sidhwa served on an advisory board to Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on women’s development and has taught at Columbia University, the University of Houston, Rice University, Mount Holyoke College and Brandeis University.
She has won several honors such as the Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe/Harvard, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award, the Sitara-i-lmtiaz, which is Pakistan’s highest national honor in the arts and the 2007 Premio Mondello for “Foreign Authors for Water.