QUEEN’S ROAD: Celebrated novelist Amitav Ghosh, best known for his account of the Opium Wars, was in Bengaluru on Friday. He spoke at length to City Express about his Ibis trilogy.
The saga sets sail with a vision that Deeti, a woman in a Bihar village, sees of a ship. Eventually, as you read the Sea of Poppies, the first in his trilogy, you realise that she is also a keeper of memories in her shrine of drawings. In that sense, the author is much like his creation. A keeper of memories.
The Opium Wars have left no trail in the collective memory of Indians. Thanks to the trilogy, the haze seems to have lifted, somewhat. The opium trade was important to the British East India Company and rich merchants from the Parsi community from what was then Bombay. Opium made or destroyed lives in India and China. To capture a period in history (1839-1842) that had such a lasting impact on many lives needs lots of research.
“I travelled to China and Mauritius as part of the research,” Ghosh tells us. Because the book is set around ships, he even tried his hand at sailing near the British Virgin Islands. But the research came about after he had created the characters. Being a historian and a novelist are separate things.
The languages used are also part of a forgotten chapter in our history. The trilogy resurrects a riot of tongues — pidgin, lascari, Creole, Gujarati — spoken by the Parsi community of Bombay. “I found a good book on Parsi Gujarati, and had friends help me with that bit,” Ghosh says. If you are reading or have read Flood of Fire, you’ll notice that Shireen Modi and the other Parsis speak in this tongue.
The women
Talking of Shireen brings us to the women in the book. Does Ghosh see them as breaking away from social hierarchies at a time (the Victorian era) when it was unthinkable? “But Shireen is exactly the kind of woman to whom acceptance must have come easy because she was the wife of a rich merchant,” Ghosh remarks. Social norms, morals and frameworks change miraculously where commerce and convenience are concerned.
Commerce, free trade
One can’t talk of commerce and not ask Ghosh about the character of Zachary Reid, a lovable man in the Sea of Poppies, second mate on the Ibis sailing from Baltimore to the then Calcutta. Zachary’s is an amazing transformation by the time one reaches the Flood of Fire, almost a metaphor for want, greed and capitalism. Is it a statement on current society?
“What do you think?” counters Ghosh. “It is,” I tell him. He shrugs and laughs. “We are all Zachary, to an extent...wanting more and more,” he says.
Did the 19th century opium trade years set off in motion the concept of free trade and commerce? “It was a generation of merchants, which included a lot of Scottish people, you mustn’t forget, who were influenced by Adam Smith. And thus the whole free trade and capitalism idea came about,” he explains.
India-China ties
All the talk about capitalism and free markets brings us to the current scenario, and I ask Ghosh the inevitable question about India-China ties.
“It is often simplified. The way we look at China is either through the 1962 war or the prism of our thousands of years of friendship. It has been reduced to one thing or another. Unfortunately, we are focused on the West. India forgets where we live,” he remarks.
Why is it that Indians and Chinese are guarded about each other? “We know very little about China. Most of us aren’t interested. We know about many other countries, but not about China,” he says. “One of the journeys for me (thanks to the trilogy) has been the discovery of China.”
Are the Chinese interested in India? “There is a certain amount of interest, because of the Buddhist connection,” he says.
Why is he drawn to history? “It is the reason we are here. I have always been fascinated by history,” he says with a smile and a shrug. Indians aren’t interested in history, but that it is not the case with China, he observes. “You have to turn on the television there and you are bound to catch a historical drama or two,” he says.
It is this deep love for history that helps Ghosh fill his books with such detail. A Bangalorean’s interest is piqued by the mention of Congreve rockets (based on Bangalore rockets, which were designed by Hyder Ali and Tipu).
Might any of the characters come back to us in some other form? A Deeti or a Zachary? “Possibly yes, or no. I don’t know.” We ask him about Deeti again. “I’m quite afraid of her,” he jokes. Hers is an unseen presence in the Flood of Fire. A shore every other characters aspires to reach.
For now, though, the Ibis trilogy is over, and a long journey has come to an end. “My children were young when I started on the trilogy. Today, they have jobs,” he says.
Flood of Fire
It is 1839 and tension has been
rapidly mounting between China and British India following the crackdown on opium smuggling by Beijing. The colonial government declares war. One of the vessels requisitioned for the attack, the Hind, sails into the midst of the First Opium War. The turbulent voyage brings together a diverse group of travellers, each with their own agenda.
(From Amitav Ghosh’s website)
About Ghosh
Ghosh is Indian-American, and debuted with the novel The Circle of Reason (1986). The Sea of Poppies (2008) is the first of his Ibis trilogy.