https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i2.091
Adapting Ice-Candy-Man into 1947: Earth: Partition, Gender, and Cinematic Transformation
DR. MEENAKSHI KULKARNI
Associate Professor, Department of English
L.A.D. and Smt. R. P. College for Women, Nagpur
Abstract: Bapsi Sidhwa is Pakistan’s leading diasporic writer and is best known for her collaborative association with Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta. Sidhwa’s 1991 novel Ice-Candy-Man served as the basis for Mehta’s 1998 film 1947: Earth. The film is a powerful and disturbing reminder of how a civilization can suddenly fracture under social and political pressures. The aftershocks of Partition continue to resonate even today. The film presents significant aspects of the novel, representing nationalism, religious fervour, friendship, and betrayal during the transitional period of the division of the Indian subcontinent.
The adaptation of a novel into a film, and the transformation of a print medium into a visual medium, becomes an emotionally charged narrative shaped by the filmmaker’s interpretative vision. This paper applies psychoanalytic film theory to analyse Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-Man as a personal version of Partition seen through the perspective of a young girl, thereby exploring the female viewpoint and women’s responses to the violence of the Indian Holocaust.
Keywords: Partition, feminist perspective, male gaze, psychoanalytic film theory
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