A booklover’s tryst with Amitav Ghosh and all writers Indian….
I feel drenched. This is perhaps the second time after Vairamuthu’s
“Thaneer Desam” that I read a book on troubled Indian waters. “The Hungry Tide” is penned by Amitav Ghosh,
Indian by birth and going by his writings, Indian- rather Bengali- by thought.
Nostalgia affects everything. Our desires, interests,
pursuits…It spares nothing. I love Ilaiyaraja’s compositions. His songs from
the 1980’s give me solace whenever I feel alone and restless but I cannot equal
the fervor with which my appa listens to his tunes. Some songs never fail to
moisten his eyes. He has lived through an era in which Ilaiyaraja ruled
over people’s senses. His admiration for
the Maestro therefore will always be greater than mine.
And nostalgia is the same reason why the British classic “Jane
Eyre” will remain my favourite book and I am reluctant to let any book replace
it. I cannot sum up with words the kind of emotions that welled up in me when I
first read it as a pre-teen. When Jane grew up, I grew up with her. Words fail
me again when I recount how I felt as a girl late into her teens rereading it
for the nth time. Now in my twenties, I feel not an iota of change in my
stance. I am simply content with Jane. But the same cannot be said of my favourite
author.
As a child, I loved
the works of J.K.Rowling, Enid Blyton, Charles Dickens, the Bronte Sisters and
a host of other famous writers but I couldn’t find anyone to label as the “author
I admire the most” probably because most
of their writings failed to touch my
native chords. In simple words, they weren’t “Made In India”. I wanted the
author to write prose with a kiss of poetry; fiction based on actual facts; narrative
that included well grounded research; action and romance in equal measures;
elaborate writing backed by a rich vocabulary and most of all, the indigenousness
I earnestly craved for. So the search
for the favourite author seemed to continue for all eternity until my eyes met
Ghosh’s…name on the cover.(wink,wink)
A few years back, Ghosh’s “Sea of Poppies” set me up
for a journey I wasn’t prepared for. The book offered me an eclectic mix of
history and fiction, a genre I wasn’t familiar with until then. The Sea of Poppies was the first of the Ibis
Trilogy. Set in the Nineteenth century, it had an ensemble of characters whose lives
were intertwined with one another and whose livelihood were deeply rooted in
the Opium trade rampant across the Indo-Chinese border. As I reached the end of the 533 odd pages, I
knew I was in love.
The sequel “River of Smoke” was a bit disappointing, perhaps
I expected way too much. The book was filled with anecdotes and well researched
content from page to page which I enjoyed but to my dismay, it left little
space for the drama to unfold in full measure. It was more smoke and less fire which I
believe Ghosh will compensate with his aptly titled “Flood of Fire” set
to release this summer. I can’t wait to
read it. (The last time I anticipated a book launch was when “The Deathly
Hallows” was released. The wait!) 
Amitav Ghosh was the first of Indian/diasporic writers whose
works I started reading. Jhumpa Lahiri (The Namesake, Interpreter
of Maladies), Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni (The Palace of Illusions,
Mistress of Spices), Aravind Adiga(The White Tiger), Gregory
David Roberts(Shantaram), Willian Dalrymple (The Last
Mughal) and even Hussain Zaidi (Dongri to Dubai) are the latest
entrants to my author list whom I count on to satiate my hunger for all books “Indian”
and I vouch for each one of them. I plan to add Vikram Seth, Ramachandra Guha and Anita Nair to this list
soon.
Eventually I felt
guilty for boycotting foreign goods that I read a “Love in the Time of Cholera”
(Gabriel Garcia Marquez) to make up for it. It is a lovely book in terms of
language but the theme seemed quite disturbing.
The book I finished today is The Hungry Tide. Ghosh
mostly centers his books around Calcutta . His Bengali roots run deep as seen
by his works because of which- I have to admit- I have this new found fixation towards
all things Bengali. I loved reading the book. It was a deeply engaging and a
surreal experience for me. It gave me an urge to travel, to explore and to
learn the ways of the world. I felt I was living in the Tide country(the
Sunderbans) and my journey came to a saddening halt as the story ended. My
perspective towards people living in territories of endangered species took a
whole new turn and I ended up feeling extremely sorry for them. But the book comes with a warning as with all
other books of Amitav Ghosh. His books are not for everybody. It takes patience
and enormous zeal to learn about a culture/scenario in-depth. He has
meticulously researched each and every tiny detail that goes into the story and
it even requires you to read between the lines. You cannot just skim through
his descriptive accounts. That amounts to doing injustice as a reader.
It is of course cool to read about California’s Gold Rush,
Chicago’s Scarface, Churchill’s Biography, Che Guevara’s revolutionary ideas
but it is equally important to equip ourselves with our country’s history and
be aware of well documented but little known accounts of great Indian men and women.
Historical Fiction is one of the most plausible ways of achieving that. Indian
writers other than those best selling candy floss, fantasy or romance laden sort
of writers need an audience among youngsters too. Try reading an Amitav Ghosh
or a Jhumpa Lahiri between your John
Green and Veronica Roth, you will find the experience truly exhilarating!
Good one! Hope I too read it soon! :)
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