Sea of Poppies
The first part of the proposed Ibis trilogy, this novel by Amitav Ghosh certainly plays no small part in taking Indian English fiction to the next level. He, along with other new-found stalwarts like Kiran Desai, have made sure that Indian English fiction and Salman Rushdie will no longer be spoken in the same breath. A superbly paced novel, replete with just the right amount of elaborate details, sucks you in with its accurate rendition of India under the autocratic British rule. His previous book 'The Glass Palace' certainly paves the way for Ghosh to go out and truly realise his potential.
Rather than stick to one character and narrate the whole story through that character's point of view, Ghosh tries his hand at something unique, though, at the same time, at the risk of over-cooking his story – dillying-dallying with the stories of many characters, and patiently, merging them around the central focal point of the story, the ship Ibis. This technique serves a dual purpose, eliminating the danger of turning the novel into a drag and more importantly, the author is able to demonstrate how each strata of the society was placed at that time.
The importance of the timeline cannot be ignored. The title says it all – it was the time when the British opium network was at its pinnacle. Everything and anything in a common Indian's life was inextricably tied to opium. Deeti's marriage to an opium addict, Raja Neel Rattan's debt due to over-investment in the opium trade – all stories seem to point towards above stated hypothesis.
The story, more importantly, is set at the time when the mighty British empire was contemplating unleashing a war on the “Long-Tails”, or the Chinese, who were beginning to resist British attempts to force the opium trade on them, thus instigating what, historically, are called the Opium Wars. Before one goes criticising the British for their apparent perception of superiority, it is the reasons they give for waging this war that leaves the reader exasperated. Imposing God's word on the Chinese and the survival of the poppy-growing farmers – the very principles which the merchants violated at every step – are quoted as reasons to go to war.
Apart from the very obvious theme of British oppression of Indians, there are many a sub-plot brewing beneath this facade. For one, the society which was steeped up to the neck in superstitions is brought out to the fore with brutal frankness. One gory example of this trend is the use of the impotent Hukam Singh's brother having sex with a drugged Deeti on her marriage night, in order to consummate their marriage. While one might gasp in horror at such a prospect today, it was very much the preferred option at that time to hide the husband's inadequacies. Without fail, the author more than subtly does expose the themes of child-marriage and sati. Also, the jailing of Neel Rattan Halder shows that, despite the Empire's claims of fair justice, just how much sway the powerful merchants held over the judicial system, reducing it to a farce.
Along the course of the book, we are constantly reminded of a flourishing underground slave trade, with the slaves', called 'girmitiyas' – those who pledge their entire lives to slavery, transportation to Mauritius, being the fulcrum around which the story revolves, as it is this fateful journey on the schooner Ibis, on which our characters' story cross each other. Despite the blanket ban on employing slaves, the slave trade nevertheless continues to flourish under the tutelage of the British empire.
While reading the book, one cannot help but notice the fact that the language of the book changes dialect as the character changes. That is, a common word is deliberately misspelled to match the character's accent – so schooner becomes 'iskuner' and vice-versa 'khana' becomes 'connah' – clearly, great pains have been taken to ensure that the reader feels completely at home in understanding the character. One mistake, whether intentional or not I cannot say, is the usage of the state of Jharkhand, which was nowhere near formation at that stage.
This multi-dimensional novel leaves the reader gasping for more, which anyway is the author's ultimate task. If 'Sea of Poppies' is anything to go by, certainly the remaining two books will fetch Amitav Ghosh the Booker he was denied for his first book.
Parag Goel
2009PH10730
Loved this book a lot. Amitav Ghosh has created an epic tale of adventure,love,history with Sea of Poppies. It has a memorable and varied cast of characters, exotic locales and most important of all, an engaging story.
ReplyDeleteThe book is set just before the start of the Opium Wars between Britain and China. The setting of the book is the British ship, the Ibis filled with a variety of people from various backgrounds. The story that follows is about these different characters on the ship as well as how they came to be on the ship (A considerable part of the book is spent on the latter kind of stories).
I loved how the author started telling all these individual back-stories and then weaved them together like parts of a grand tapestry. Also throughout the book, the characters change from time to time and along with it the language the novel is written in too changes, so that it better fits the current character (Something seen previously in Portrait of an Artist as A Young Man). This is a very interesting technique which enriches the reading experience a lot. Also you can see Ghosh has put a lot of research into this book as he weaves various historical elements in the book.
The only gripe I have with it is that the ending is too sudden and more of a 'to be continued' than a true ending (which is understandable as it is a part of a trilogy but still).
An engaging read that will suck you into it's mesmerizing world all I can say is "Bring on the next one".
I agree with you that Ghosh, unlike prior Indian authors, who aspired to use pure metropolitan English, uses words from the Indian language and slangs that have arisen in India.
ReplyDeleteSea of Poppies is a historical novel and a love story journeying both on land and water. It is an account of a thriving global opium trade, addiction, greed, betrayal, war, occupation and the rigid hierarchy of cast, class, race and power. The novel points out an emotional picture of devastation caused due to imperialism. The fertile land of Ganges is blossoming with poppies, beautiful but deadly plants, denying the peasants the crops to sustain them.
I would like to mention again the wonderful way in which the narrator tries too hard to include everyone in the story and finally intertwines their lives to the Ibis. At the same time the author leaves us with the correct impression of the 19th century India, a land of diversified identities and origins, of complex personalities and changing ideas. Ghosh writes in such dramatic understanding of the character’s spirit that the reader relishes every moment of the book. The author portrays the characters as seeds of a poppy plant, emerging in large numbers and in all directions to form a sea, where the future of every single seed is to unwind.
This book certainly sets a new marker for Indian literature, and please add my name to the ones waiting eagerly for the next parts of the trilogy!