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CHAPTER I

Introduction

In the discourse of postcolonialism and the historicity, Amitav Ghosh

makes a mark as an outstanding Indian English novelist and as an established

postcolonial writer and the historian. The postcolonial debates are born from

the historical experience of colonialism. The postcolonial writers assert that

their countries had a prestigious history, culture, heritage, and tradition and

they also depict the past from which they have got the raw materials for their

works. The postcolonial discourses cease to be mere adaptations of the West.

The fundamental part of the European laws, the damage of postcolonialism and

the suitability of the dominant European discourses become noticed in the

process of cultural decolonisation.

The socially acceptable view finds all the ethnic and the cultural groups

as having special characteristics and they are bound with their own territorial

existence and cultural roots that have been discussed in postcolonial discourses.

Moreover, it has been stated that the roots, the unique characters, and even the

territorial existence are created through their migration from one region to the

other or from one settlement to another. The search for food and shelter is the

primary reason for migration, but the materialistic pursuing for resources and

ideals also nurture migration by expressing ways to distant lands and cultures.

The colonial invasion in general and the British imperialism in particular

over the Eastern regions like Asia and Africa were inspired by their urge to

invade and appropriate the rich resources of the East. The imposition of

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western culture, the teaching of the English language, the emergence of new

branches of learning and knowledge, institutions of administrations and

judiciary and the introduction of trade-links which helped to establish the

Empire of the England. The middle class educated leaders who had

internalised the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity emerged as a new

force and they questioned and resisted the colonial power policy and its

supporting manifestations. The postcolonial schools of thought such as

Orientalism and New Historicism and other different branches of learning

express new views of enlightenment to the oppressed. The new generation

made an attempt to translate the dreams of the suppressed into reality by

organising nationalist movements which in turn were supported by postcolonial

writings.

It was the same colonial education which was imposed on the natives

that kindled the hopes and aspirations of reconstructing the past among the

colonised. With the attainment of freedom, people tried to reconstruct their art,

architecture, heritage and status, which in turn inspired them to work for self-

realisation.

Postcolonial discourses tried to help the marginalised people to move

from the margin to the centre. The need for providing the share to the subaltern

groups by creating new options and opportunities led to the emergence of

subaltern studies which gave an intellectual motivation to the Tribals, Dalits,

and secluded women.




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The present century finds a new hybrid school of global theory known

as globalisation in which knowledge and information, goods and services move

freely across the borders. In this context, it is highly interesting to study the

fictional works of Amitav Ghosh, who is an emerging postcolonial voice in a

‘globalized perspective’ ‘in which the global is transformed at the local level’

(The Empire Writes Back 218).

The introductory chapter surveys the confluence of history and human

insights by analysing the cultural, social, and political framework of the

historical and fictional characters in the fiction of Amitav Ghosh. The way in

which Amitav Ghosh depicts the facts and stories in his novels within his

narrative framework cultures of different nations like Burma, India, Malaya,

Bangladesh, Africa, and England is being analysed. The study also focuses on

the ideology followed by the author to weave the social, cultural, and political

events of different nations and those of the past, present, and future.

The narrative strategies followed by the author to integrate the fictional

and historical characters and to recreate the history of nations by filling up the

gaps and absences are also analysed in the course of the study. This research

study makes an attempt to illustrate the position of Amitav Ghosh in the

postcolonial literary scenario and his role reconstructs the lost cultural tradition

and myths of the communities. And this chapter is devoted to study the post

colonial concern and historical imagination in the novels of Amitav Ghosh.

The study is based on a core culture, even when the culture deals socio–

political and economic changes in its course of survival, the cultural features




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will remain constant. The unsettled people are more exposed to cultural

subjugation of the colonial masters. The metaphor of orphans and twins

depicted in Ghosh’s novels seems to suggest the tragic impact of the partition

and the subsequent realisation of the expired human ambitions.

Though Ghosh, ever since his Dancing in Cambodia, has been

publishing novels periodically, his latest being River of Smoke published in

2011, the study is limited to an in-depth discussion of the following five

novels of Ghosh—The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique

Land, The Calcutta Chromosome, and The Glass Palace—due to the unitary

and evolutionary nature of the themes and characters taken up for analysis.

Also, the researcher has made up her mind not to duplicate in his

research the topics already investigated with regard to Amitav Ghosh. Much

has been said about by way of the self in Amitav Ghosh. Most of the works

give a partial interpretation of his works and others provide insightful

arguments on specific issues on the chosen novels. A review of the earlier

works on Amitav Ghosh shows that the central idea of his novels revolves

round his postcolonial concern and the historical imagination. However, the

researcher is of the view that there is enough room on the subject, and the

thesis statement to be evolved about Amitav Ghosh taken up for evaluation.

Hence the researcher has titled her thesis “Postcolonial Concerns and the

Historical Imagination in the novels of Amitav Ghosh” The scholar has been

motivated by the frankness of the writer’s voice that has been unheard in the

Indian context. Therefore, the researcher has made a fair appraisal of the




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works of Amitav Ghosh for research. The researcher has not confined himself

to a single approach. A work of art lends itself to multiple research methods.

Many distinctive narrative techniques have been employed for the illumination

and evaluation of his works.

The first chapter, “Introduction,” discusses the perspectives of

postcolonialism, assumptions, mode of exploration, and the ideology of the

author. It also justifies the title of the thesis and its relevance in the present

literary scenario. This chapter throws light on the unity of history and

postcolonial concerns by analysing the cultural, social and political framework

of the historical and fictional characters in his fiction, and the way in which

Amitav Ghosh depicts the facts and stories in his novels within his narrative

framework. The cultures of different nations like Burma, India, Malaya,

Bangladesh, Africa, and England are also analysed. The study also focuses on

the ideology followed by the author to express the social, cultural, and political

events of different nations and those of the past, the present, and the future.

The characters reflecting the history portrayed in the novels of Amitav

Ghosh are the clear-cut evidences of the socio–cultural and political set up of

the region, culture or nation concerned, whereas the fictional characters seem

to have their prototype status in the society but are subjected to transformation

to suit the work. Postcolonial influence is evident in the writings of Amitav

Ghosh’s novels when he tries to give the information that he has got from the

history with his insight and observation. In his novels, he begins to have the

role of a spokesman for the common people and expresses the extreme




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suffering and ecstasy, pain and pleasure that they have experienced through the

conversations of the fictional characters and thus he tries to present the impact

of great historical events upon their lives. The reconstruction of a nation, the

search for identity, and cultural roots also get great significance in the fictional

world of Amitav Ghosh.

The documented public events of the nations and the undocumented

personal lives of the individuals in the society are portrayed in his novels. The

chronologically ordered history and the private experiences of the individuals

give place for the two sides, the history and the human insights. Philip Darby,

a well-known critic assumes that the novels’ contribution to the historical or

political understanding reflected from the novelist’s intuition and innovative

imagination asserts that these are the qualities lacking in an academic analysis.

Hence an attempt is made in this study to analyse the confluence of history and

the novelist’s insight, intuition, and creative imagination that has gone into the

making of the fictional works of Amitav Ghosh.

By opposing the conventional practice of selecting one nation, its

people, its culture, its customs and its traditions as the background of an

individual fictional work, Ghosh constructs the nations with different fictional

characters representing many taboos in religion and culture. The construction

of the histories of the three South-East Asian countries, Burma, Malaya, and

India and the results of the British conquering Burma, the First and Second

World Wars, the Japanese invasion of Burma, the sense of rootlessness

experienced by the people, migration and the resultant identity crisis and




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hybridity in language, religion and culture in their colonial and postcolonial

phase find a prominent place in his novels.

History has documented the British imperialism of Burma in 1895 as a

great historical event. But the pain, agony, and sufferings experienced by the

members of the Burmese royal family when they were suddenly prevented to

have their ultimate power do not find any significant place. The sufferings of

the royal family in exile, the role played by the Indian soldiers of the British–

Indian army, and the plight of the exiles under the growing colonialism of

British-India were undocumented in history. The importance of these gaps in

history compelled Ghosh to find out the missed informations.

The Circle of Reason has both historical as well as mythological

elements. Mythical references have been moulded to explore contemporary

conditions in a true new historicist fashion. The characters as well as different

situations of the novel stand for rootlessness. Migration, diasporic feelings,

rootlessness, and a new kind of sensibility born from these factors are unique to

the present age. The distinctive qualities and the uniqueness of the present age

is loneliness and a sense of emptiness that come with the individual migration

or the migration of comparatively smaller groups. Since time immemorial, the

human race has been preoccupied with the ideas of belonging, heritage,

inheritance, and the native soil.

The Shadow Lines is written on an emotional thought and sensibility,

explaining the small, universal truths of life. The true portrayal of the mental

condition of children is so remarkable. It shows that the author has reminisced




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his childhood in this book. On a psychological basis of an analysis, the book

got roots from the narator’s personality and identity in childhood. The narrator

stands out as an adult rooted in his childhood experiences. Whenever the

narrator describes his experiences, his reaction to it stems out of his childhood

impressions. The way he takes cities like London, Calcutta or Dhaka or people

like his cousin Ila, or slightly known persons like May and Nick-everything

springs from his childhood perceptions. It seems so natural, the only honest

way of taking life and its experiences. The treatment of the subject is simply

overwhelming. Tridib is the narrator’s older cousin. His impact on the

narrator’s life is very great. Tridib and the narrator-child have a special bond.

They have in a way, conspired to look at the world with their own eyes or

rather Tridib’s eccentric, rational, and detached eyes. So while listening to the

stories of London, Cairo, and other exotic places, the narrator travels,

identifying himself (almost perfect to his child’s eyes) as the role model.

In An Antique Land, is a book that proves Amitav Ghosh an

anthropological historian. With serious concerns of a historian, Amitav Ghosh

points out the tragic turn of events in the history of Asia and Middle East and

particularly India. This book underlines the unarmed nature of the Indian trade

and commerce before the discovery of Vasco- de-Gama in India. The author

brings to focus, an immemorial period of history, which portrays how free and

liberal India’s collaboration with the Arab and Chinese world. He highlights

the easy flow of human warmth and trust that existed between a Tunisian

Jewish merchant and his Indian helper, Bomma. The book is obviously an




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evidence to Ghosh’s strong desire as a tireless, genuine researcher. In fact this

book covers Ghosh’s research as a social anthropologist over the decades. It

establishes Ghosh not just as a writer of fiction but also a best traveller, a

careful researcher, a social anthropologist, and a social historian.

It is a contemporary novel, describing some ordinary characters. The

daily confrontations of these characters are shown in this novel. Their religious

rites, social customs along with their eccentricities, and the sudden desires are

effectively portrayed. A tale grows into a story; ordinariness becomes history;

and anthropology mixes with fiction. This novel is a change in the ecology of

learning.

The Calcutta Chromosome has multiple stories. Though it is a complex

novel, it does not decrease the interest of the reader in the stories. It also

follows the tradition of Indian epics. The novel has been criticized as a

medical thriller, a victorious ghost story, and a scientific quest. However, the

author of the novel is cyclic and not linear unlike in the West. The narrative

moves between the present and the late 19th century. It is rather a search for,

and history of the elusive and attractive Calcutta Chromosome.

The novel begins with a quest represented by Antar, Murugan, Mangala,

Lutchman, Urmila, Sonali, Romen Haldar, and Mrs. Aratounian etc. The

minor characters are Ava, Tara, Maria, Phulboni, a missing toothed boy, a fish

seller, a stationmaster, and a chain of scientists who are involved in a scientific

research of malarial parasite. Ghosh employs unusual techniques in the novel.

He uses Antar’s character as a cunning act to begin with. Antar-a computer




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loving Egyptian clerk in New York, and Ava-an employee of Lhasa at

International Water Council’s Continental Command Centre for Asia, are used

for providing a frame work to the quest of Murugan- the protagonist of the

novel.

The Glass Palace, Amitav Ghosh’s popular novel, is set in Burma and

India and presents the developing history of those regions before and during the

fraught years of the Second World War and India’s struggle for independence.

It follows the fall of the Burmese Royal family at the advent of the British

Empire, and shows how the lives of the ordinary people rolled on under the

circumstances. Ghosh also skilfully portrays the foreigners, especially the

Indians, taking advantage of the situation with the teak industry created by the

British. The most curious aspect of this novel is that even though the author

makes good use of Western methods of uncovering history, not one of his

principal characters is a European. His perspective is always the viewpoint of a

subaltern that tries to understand, react, and arrange the situation according to

his understanding.

The Second Chapter analyses Postcolonial polemics and the

philosophical development of the study beginning with colonialism and the

subsequent emergence of Commonwealth literature to post colonialism in

order to place and identify the fictional works of Amitav Ghosh in the

philosophical framework. Literary theories formulated by the Russian

theoretician and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin are studied in relation to

the narrative techniques used in the fictional works of Amitav Ghosh. In




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postcolonial world, among the post-colonial writers Amitav Ghosh is very

prominent. His books contain either post-colonial scenario or the pre-colonial

and colonial scenario. He is an Indian writer and India was ruled by the British

for two hundred years. He creates vivid images in his books where readers can

easily enter into that world of exquisite imagery.

In An Antique Land is the story of Amitav Ghosh’s decade of intimacy

with the village community. Mixing conversation and research, imagination

and scholarship, it is an eccentric history of the special relationship between

two countries, Egypt and India, through nearly ten centuries of parochialism

and sympathy, narrow-mindedness and affection.

It is the technical novelty as well as the unique art construction that

makes the book a distinctive work. This book has been divided into sections,

“Lataifa”, “Nashawy”, “Mangalore” and “Going Back”. It begins with

“Prologue” and ends with “Epilogue”. In “Lataifa” there is an introduction of

historical facts about the “Egyptian Babilon” and a description of Ben Azra’s

Synagogue and its Geniza in Cairo. In “Nashway” we find the historical

documentation of the authors’ childhood in post-partition Dhaka. In

“Mangalore” we see that the story of Ibn Batuta, the folk life of Tulundua, the

history of Tulu Language and culture.

There are three parallel stories in In An Antique Land, first, the story of

Jewish Merchant Abraham Ben Yiju who came from Aden to Mangalore, for

trade eight hundred years ago with his Indian slave Bomma. Secondly, the

story of modern Egypt that Amitav Ghosh relates from his first-hand




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experience in two Egyptian villages. Thirdly, search of Amitav Ghosh’s

story: his search for the Antique world of Ben Yiju and his slave. The three

stories are interrelated and from an intricate texture makes the conscious reader

alert. One has to pause and ponder which level of the narrative cut as the

functional devise.

The Glass Palace is Amitav Ghosh’s expedition in understanding the

ravages done by colonialism. It begins in 1885 Burma when the British finally

subjected it and sent the Burmese Royal family into exile. “The Glass Palace”

refers to the Burmese royal palace at Mandalay – to be exact, it is the

magnificent hall where the Burmese monarchs held audience. But it is also the

name of a small photo studio in the late twentieth century where the novel The

Glass Palace ends, the studio which derived its name from its original, as a

reminder of the old days when Burma was free, both of the colonial powers and

the junta which controls it now.

The book traces the life of Rajkumar, an orphan boy of Indian origin,

who after lots of struggles becomes a rich teak merchant. The most notable

aspect of the novel is, however, that there is not a single episode in the entire

book directly representing the British. They are presented in the background,

and they are not brought into the story as characters. Ghosh has treated them

almost in the same way as the 18th or 19th century British writers used the

colonized countries- as backgrounds or as references that may affect the life

style or the story line, but do not have direct association with the characters. It

is actually a short history of a nation seen through the eyes of the subaltern.




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The third chapter, Historical Imagination, gives the illustration that deals

with twin perspectives, the historicity and insights on colonial people of the

postcolonial theory. Historical events and imaginative fiction are subtly

interwoven into the narrative fabric of Amitav Ghosh’s fiction. The

fictionalised history that he presents through his novels is an allegorical

representation of subverted history in which an attempt is made to fill in ‘gaps’

and ‘absences’. The plot of The Shadow Lines is woven around actual

historical events like the Second World War and the post-Partition communal

riots which broke out in certain parts of India and Pakistan. The novel also

focuses on the events that happened in the fag end of 1963 and in 1964. There

was a collective expression of grief, a demonstration of all religions in which

Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus alike took part. In January 1964 Mu-I-Mubarak

was recovered and the city of Srinagar erupted with joy. But soon after the

recovery, riots broke out in Khulna and a few people were killed. Riots spread

to Dhaka and Calcutta. The death-toll increased to thousands. Despite the

presence of two armies, of Pakistan and India, stray incidents of arson and

looting continued for a few days. There were innumerable cases of the

Muslims in East Pakistan giving shelter to the Hindus, often at the cost of their

own lives and equally of the Hindus protecting the Muslims. “But they

were ordinary people, soon forgotten … not for them any Martyr’s memorials

or Eternal Flames” (Shadow Lines 230).

The fourth Chapter, Quest for Identity, portrays the pathetic conditions

of the colonial people and their need for individual identity. Amitav Ghosh’s




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novels, in general, portray the characters engaged in individual identity, reason

and truth. In this sense they are rightly so called discourses on human quest.

The physical and psychic explorations provide promises of alternative worlds

and visions compel its characters to traverse diverse geographic locations and

points of time. The eventful explorative, personal journey takes shape through

individual memory and recollections of others. The individual’s search for a

meaningful existence is personified in memory as a relived experience.

Accordingly Rajkumar in The Glass Palace undertakes quest for identity for

ransacking his memory but without a conspicuous finale.

The central protagonists of the novels of Amitav Ghosh from The Circle

of Reason to The Glass Palace are portrayed to experience their past as

discursively separate and opposed to the present. These innocent victims of the

social and political unrest created by the whirlwinds of colonialism and its

aftermath share almost the same emotional phenomenon in spite of changes in

their times and milieu. As a result, alienation remains a constant factor

throughout their life stories and experiences, incessantly driving them to quests

for their real identity. These subversive quests portrayed in the novels celebrate

the ultimate triumph of the native spirit proclaiming centrality to the subaltern.

The fifth Chapter presents the Narrative Techniques employed by

Amitav Ghosh and highlights his linguistic experimentation using innovative

techniques. The narrative strategies followed by Ghosh to integrate the

fictional and historical characters and to recreate the history of nations by

filling up the gaps and absences are also analysed in this chapter. This research




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makes an attempt to illustrate the position of Amitav Ghosh in the postcolonial

literary scenario and shows how his role reconstructs the lost cultural tradition

and myths of the communities. Ghosh has widened the horizon of English

language by adding ever new linguistic registers and cultural terms which he

has acquired through his travel and his stay in various locations of the world.

Hence an attempt has been made in this study to focus upon the contributions

he has made to enlarge English vocabulary.

Apart from the thematic diversity, the innovative narrative strategies that

Ghosh has experimented in his fictional works and travelogues have accorded a

world-wide readership to his writings. In this context it seems to be highly

relevant to examine the narrative strategies that he has developed for his

fictional works.

Critical studies on Amitav Ghosh have been until very recently, mainly

restricted to thematic studies. A stylistic analysis of his novels has not been

formulated, as the stylistic uniqueness of his novelistic prose has not been

properly recognised. His craftsmanship in prose and the distinctive features of

the narrative strategies he has employed in his fictional world shall not go

unnoticed, therefore, a chapter is set apart exclusively to deal with this topic.

Literary theories propounded by Mikhail Bakhtin like dialogism, polyphony

and heteroglossia have been used as a framework to analyse the techniques of

his narration. The philosophic vision of the orient is polyphonic; embracing

into its fold the multiple voices and multiple ideologies of different cultures,




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languages and religions and Ghosh’s fictional works seem to fit into this

scheme.

The last chapter, Conclusion, sums up the arguments of the study and

places Amitav Ghosh’s novels as a compendia of the most contemporary

issues such as modern man’s perennial problems of alienation, the quest for

freedom and existential crisis. Restless, rootless, and unsettled, the modern

man is in search of peace, comfort, and shelter. His sense of belonging is

shaken. The bliss of freedom has disappeared. Life has become nothing but

silence and pauses without harmony and destination. There is a vast gap

between words and the world. The disturbance caused by the gaps and

absences and seamless silences forces Ghosh to craft his novels on the victims

of history. The undocumented histories of ordinary people and the

chronologically ordered histories of historical characters are subtly dovetailed

into his novels, making explicit a confluence of history and human insights.

The strategy of subversion, a common feature of postcolonial histories is

visible in the novels of Ghosh. Colonial historians constructed historical

records to suit to the European sensibilities so as to secure complete authority

over the colonized population. Postcolonial writers attempt to tell the other

side of the story to accommodate not only the key events experienced by a

community but also the cultural context through which these events are

interpreted and recorded. Historiography is problematized and it is claimed

that the written history is incomplete as something essentially human is lost

under the broad sweeps of history. Deriving strength from political




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sovereignty, the postcolonial writers, and Amitav Ghosh is particular, began to

relegitimise history by rewriting it from the perspective of the colonized.

In the circumstance of rising political, social, and religious unrest, where

the world is torn up by terrorism and violence, a study of the novels of Amitav

Ghosh which imagines a borderless world of peace, fraternity and love will be

highly significant. In the era of globalisation and against the background of the

social construct namely the global village, the study is expected to provide a

mirror to the readers to see the recurring historical events from a new literary

perspective.

Amitav Ghosh is the recipient of a number of awards for his published

works. His first novel The Circle of Reason was translated into many

languages. Its French edition received the Prix Medicis Estranger, a restigious

literary award in France. His second novel The Shadow Lines won two

prestigious Indian prizes, Sahitya Academy Award (1989) and the Ananda

Puraskar. His third novel The Calcutta Chromosome won the Arthur C. Clarke

Award in 1997. The novel was filmed by Gabriele Salvatores, the Oscar

winning director of Mediteranno. Ghosh is the winner of the 1999 Pushcart

prize, a leading literary award, for an essay that was published in the Kenyon

Review. Amitav Ghosh’s fourth novel The Glass Palace is the winner of the

2001 Frankfurt e-Book Award sponsored by the International eBook Award

Foundation at the Frankfurt Book Fair in January 2005. The Hungry Tide was

awarded the Hutch Crossword Book Prize, a major Indian award. He was

awarded Padma Sri by the Government of India in 2007. Amitav Ghosh’s




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fictions and non-fictions have been translated into nineteen languages and he

has served on the jury of the Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland, and the

Venice Film festival.

For the past twenty years, Amitav Ghosh has held the attention of the

readers with his novels and travelogues. Much less known is the fact that,

simultaneously, Amitav Ghosh has been writing non-fictional prose, reflective

essays, political commentary, book reviews, autobiographical articles,

academic expositions, and translations from Bengali and literary anthropology.

His non-fiction work In An Antique Land reflects history in the guise of a

traveller’s tale. It is unification of fiction, history, travel-writing and

anthropology which makes the researcher to think again the political

boundaries that divide the world and boundaries that divide narrative styles.

The collection of prose pieces entitled The Imam and the Indian shares with his

fiction certain characteristic subjects and concerns like the connection between

past and present, between events and memories, and between people, cultures,

and countries. The travelogue, Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma is

based upon the author’s travel experiences to countries like Cambodia and

Burma and his personal communications with the native people he had met.

Countdown is the result of Amitav Ghosh’s journey into the Pokharan area

where Indian government tested five nuclear devices and he expresses the

opinion that the pursuit of nuclear weapons in the subcontinent is the moral

equivalent of civil war.




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When the ecological and environmental problems give a great threat to

the existence of living beings on earth, it is compulsory on the part of the

contemporary writers to raise the consciousness of the people across the globe

and find solutions for the problems. Ghosh in his latest novel The Hungry Tide

gives warning to humanity of an impending ecological disaster. Unless people

are ready to waste some of the foolish ideas of development, designated as

‘maldevelopment’ by Vandana Siva (Key Concepts in Critical Theory: Ecology

276), global warming and other similar disasters will destroy us altogether.

Cyclones and earthquakes will become common phenomena, taking a heavy

charge of lives. Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide is the first novel which offers a

reminder to the human community that unless it exercises caution and restraint

in the exploitation of nature, it may have to face terrible consequences. His

predictable vision came true with the outbreak of tsunami which hit the coastal

areas of the Bay of Bengal causing havoc to mankind and nature. The

catastrophe ruined the whole area rendering many human beings homeless and

producing an equal number of orphans without any means of subsistence.

Even as India was recovering from the terrible destruction unleashed by the

hungry tidal waves, different areas across the globe like New Orleans in

America, Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, Western Cuba, Southern half of Florida

and the Caribbeans had witnessed untold disaster, when extremely dangerous

category five storm known under different names like Katrina, Wilma, Beta

and Rita destroyed all over these areas during the record breaking 2005

hurricane season between June and November. In this context a study of the




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novels of Amitav Ghosh written with such foresight and intuitive wisdom will

be highly rewarding.

Ghosh’s life has been sometimes wandering. This rootless existence

is reflected in his novels as the characters spend most of their lives on the

move. Fiction, travelogues, essays, articles, - Amitav Ghosh’s written output is

staggeringly large and wide ranging. A visiting professor at various

universities like University of Virginia, Columbia University, University of

Pennsylvania and American University in Cairo, Ghosh has also held the title

of Distinguished Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at

Queen’s College, City University of New York. Currently he is a Visiting

Professor in the Department of English and American Literature at Harvard.

For these academic distinctions, he has been bailed as a cosmopolitan

intellectual writing in English, emerging from the Indian literary scene with a

distinctive and confident voice.

The present study is based on the assumption that Ghosh’s novels reflect

a relationship between history and human insights. History no longer remains

an unalterable construct. Jago Morrison observes: The fabric of history,

collective memory and social time within which, a century ago, fiction could

locate itself has been subject to profound interrogation and transformation

(Contemporary Fiction 7).

The voice of the common man, his struggles and sacrifices which are

unnoticed in the historical records began to acquire a significant place in works

of Ghosh. Historiography, highlighted different structures, and praised their




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political, cultural, social and economic policies but did not include the plight of

the marginalised and the oppressed people. In On the Genealogy of Morals

Nietzche states that the meanings of history are always reflection of power.

Morrison notices that Foucault’s observation on history has similar overtones:

Drawing on Nietzche’s work a century before, Foucault’s

genealogy seeks to frustrate the attempts made by traditional

academics and writers to present history as a well- understood,

rational development towards civilised enlightenment. Instead,

he tries to show a much messier series of struggles, a series of

ideological and bodily coercions and subjugations, by means of

which dominant discourses secure their own emergence as

‘rational, ’true’ and ‘right’ (20)

Ghosh’s fictional works clearly portray Foucaultian analysis. History

ceases to be the forte of those who have power. The twentieth century

postcolonial novelists are involved in bringing the lost history back in which

the powerless, the marginalised, and the subjugated assert themselves and

move towards the centre.

Michael Holquist in his introduction to Bakhtin’s Dialogic Imagination

observes some of the similarities and differences between novel and history

as follows:

Histories are like novels in that they insist on homology between

the sequence of their telling, the form they impose to create a

coherent explanation in the form of narrative on the one hand and




22

the sequence of what they tell on the other…. The novel differs

from history in that it dramatizes the gaps that always exist

between what is told and the telling of it, constantly

experimenting with social discursive and narrative

asymmetries… Both history and novel strive to give narrative

shape to material of encyclopaedic variety and plenitude (The

Dialogical Imagination 28)

Morrison points out that “in the earliest realist traditions of the novel

historical engagement appeared nothing like so problematic as it has come to

seem in contemporary writing” (Contemporary Fiction 11). The awareness

that history is only a theory containing various elements of human being and

that gaps, absences, and silences in history have to be filled in by

reconstructing it has become a dominant concern for the contemporary writers.

In this context Dhawan observes: The novelist concerned with history is

beyond the traditional ways of assessing events; he has to blend history with

his vision and philosophy” (The Novels of Amitav Ghosh14).

Postcolonial impact is alive on the writings of Amitav Ghosh’s novels

when he tries to give the information of what he has gathered from history with

his insight and observation. In his novels, he begins to have the role of a

spokesman for the common people and brings to light the agony and ecstasy,

pain and pleasure that they have undergone through the conversations of

fictional characters and thus he tries to depict the impact of great historical

events upon their lives. Reconstruction of a nation, search for identity and




23

cultural roots also achieve great significance in the fictional world of Amitav

Ghosh. The documented public events and the undocumented personal lives of

individuals in the society are portrayed together like warp and woof in his

novels. This subtle fusion of chronologically ordered history and private

experiences of individuals makes a place for the two sides, history and human

insights. Philip Darby, a well-known critic assumes that fiction’s contribution

to historical or political understanding reflects from the novelist’s intuition

and creative imagination and asserts that these are the qualities lacking in

academic analysis. Hence an attempt is made in this study to analyse the

confluence of history and the novelist’s insight, intuition, and creative

imagination that has gone into the making of the fictional works of Amitav

Ghosh. Ira Pande reviews Ghosh’s The Glass Palace as follows:

Spanning centuries and generations and straddling the space of

three countries India, Burma and Malaysia, this is a saga that

could have exhausted the skills of a lesser writer. But in the

hands of Ghosh, a historian by training, an adventurous traveller

and a sensitive writer of fiction, it becomes a confluence of all the

three (Road to Mandalay 3)

Opposing conventional practice of choosing one nation, its people, its

culture, customs and traditions as the background of an individual fictional

work, Ghosh constructs the nations with different characters representing

plurality in religion, culture, and so on. Reconfiguration of the histories of the

three South-East Asian countries, Burma, Malaya, and India and the




24

consequences of the British occupation of Burma, the First and Second World

Wars, the Japanese invasion of Burma, the sense of rootlessness experienced

by the people, migration and the resultant identity crisis and hybridity in

language, religion and culture in their colonial and postcolonial phase find

plenty of details in his novels. History has recorded the British imperialism of

Burma in 1895 as a great historical event. But the pain, agony and torture

experienced by the members of the Burmese royal family when they were

suddenly prevented to have their sovereign power, the tortures they suffered in

exile, the plight of the orphan attendants who followed them in their exile, the

role played by the Indian soldiers of the British–Indian army in awakening

national consciousness among Indians and the plight of the exiles under the

growing colonialism of British India were left undocumented in history. The

significance of these gaps in history compelled Ghosh to find out the missing

links. In The Glass Palace he creates fictional characters to fill in the gaps and

holds significant historical characters to fulfil the target of framing another

history.

In the journey of Burma from colonialism to liberation and then to a

Republic forms the backbone of The Glass Palace, The Shadow Lines is set

against the background of major historical events like the freedom movement

in Bengal, the Second World War, the Partition and the subsequent communal

riots and the impact of these events upon the life of ordinary people. Khudiram

Bose, Bhagha Jatin and Subhash Chandra Bose, true patriots and evolutionaries

who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of India have become a part of Indian




25

history. This event of history is taken up by Ghosh in The Shadow Lines

through the fictional representation of a grandmother and her unconditional

love and admiration towards a revolutionary youth who happened to be one of

her classmates. The recalling of her classroom experience, her anti-imperialist

attitude, and her enthusiastic desire to support the revolution show the

significant role played by ordinary people for the liberation of India.

History can never record all events. Pallavi Gupta, a critic on Ghosh,

underscores “the inability of historical discourses to speak/enunciate in totality

because something will inevitably elude its grasp” (Indian writing in English

Last Decade 242). The mystery behind Tridib’s martyrdom and the nature of

his involvement in complicated situations with May Price are left out as gaps in

history. The unnamed narrator in the novel tries to reveal the mysteries and

writes down his family chronicle to be remembered by future generations.

The first novel by Amitav Ghosh, The Circle of Reason brought one

such change. The Circle of Reason is remarkable for many reasons. Its theme

is different from traditional concerns of Indian English Fiction. It challenges a

direct and simple appreciation. In fact, it needs a different type of approach to

be grasped fully. The book itself is kind of a paradox. It clearly portrays

restlessness with extreme control and poise. The new movement and lift that

came to Indian English Fiction during late eighties and early nineties is partly

due to this path-breaking work, it internationalized Indian English fiction. It

brought a refreshing contemporary issues. It is daring in its experimentation

with the form, content, and language of the novel.




26

The novel is an event occurring as part of a sequence in nature. In this

sense it can be called a picaresque novel. The novel is a journey from Sattva to

Raja to Tamas, the three parts of the novel. It seems that the journey is

lopsided. Traditionally the protagonist Alu should have gone from ‘Tama’

(darkness) to ‘Satwa’ (purity). Amitav Ghosh freely mixes past, and he writes

in a chain of thoughts. He describes one incident and links itself to any past

happening; he immediately goes to that past incident. So the whole fabric of

the novel keeps floating, going backwards and forward. And this is quite

logical in its own way. In any case present is born out of past. But it raises the

question why should one not go to the great reservoir of memories, dreams and

desires i.e., past.

The novel expressed the victory with characters. The episodes are only

loosely connected. Alu is the only constant factor who lives a life by trial and

error method; falls at times, stands up again and finally moves on to realise his

potential, if he has any. The novel, without becoming a morbid case-history,

underlines the troubled times, through which all of us are living. Like a typical

open-ended novel, it ends without providing readymade solutions. There is a

calm effect at the end. Different themes seem to draw together yet there is no

effort at preaching. In a typical picaresque fashion, Alu moves from Lalpukar

in India to Al-Ghazira in Egypt and then to a small town in the north eastern

edge of Algerian Sahara. The journey does not show any kind of satisfaction

or success. It celebrates the sense of unquiet wanderings. It goes on and on




27

searching a vision suitable for present times. It is like chasing a ghost that

ultimately vanishes into the thin air.

The Circle of Reason has both historical as well as mythological

elements. Mythical references have been moulded to reflect contemporary

conditions in a true new historicist fashion. Here, Ghosh weaves ideas,

characters and metaphors through magic and irony and develops recurring

themes in his fictions. Characters are not far from metaphors; they

become metaphors. The characters as well as different situations of the novel

stand for rootlessness. Migration, diasporic feelings, rootlessness and a new

kind of sensibility born out of these factors- which are unique to postcolonial

era. Since the beginning of the human race, migration has been a major

phenomenon. But that migration used to be huge groups. The Aryans leaving

Central Asia and spreading across Asia and Europe was no solitary act. The

typical and unique of our age is loneliness and sense of emptiness that comes

with individual migration or migration of comparatively smaller groups. Since

time immemorial, the human race has been preoccupied with ideas of

belonging, heritage, clan, inheritance and native soil.

There is nothing in this novel that can ordinarily be called a home.

Significantly, it is initially located in a refugee village. It only settles the

human race temporarily as a refugee on this planet. It goes back and forth

to Bangladesh and Calcutta. Then it reaches the Middle East via Kerala. The

last location again significantly is that of a desert with shifting sand dunes. The

story moves in an uncertain atmosphere. Even the ideas are not stable; they are




28

very strange and different. Even the most basic element of coherence, and

time, is not sequenced normally. The Circle of Reason can only be called an

endless story of restlessness, uncertainty and change.

Basically the novel tells three stories. The first part deals with the story

of Balram. He is a rationalist and is influenced by the life of Louis Pasteur. He

is idealistic to the extent of being inhuman. He has no involvement with

people. He treats others simply as objects of observation and/ or change. He

takes his whims to extreme and becomes self-destructive. In fact, he meets his

own mettle in Bhudeb Roy. He is equally cynical. He is a Congressman. Alu,

the protagonist, is a nephew of Balaram. He is the only one to survive in the

family. The second part of the novel tells another tale. An earthly, practical,

and enthusiastic trader tries to bring together the community of Indians in the

Middle East. But again these efforts prove to be unrealistic. The third part is

the story of Mrs. Verma, who outrightly rejects rational thinking. She again

tries her hand at creating Indian model of community life in the desert.

However Alu, Zindi and Jyoti Das, a police officer leave Mrs.Verma and her

experiments in the desert. At the end of the novel, these three are in search of

newer horizons, unformed hopes and ideas. Hope is their only asset.

The Circle of Reason makes an unconventional reading. The form

of the novel may be taken to symbolize the confusing state of today’s society.

But the parallel can be taken only to a certain limit because howsoever

unorthodox, the novel does have plot, theme, and characterization. The

effect that it produces is not at all chaotic.




29

The novel suggests that everything is actually a matter of how the

readers look at it. Attitudes matter. History is not unchangeable; it very much

gets moulded by the way of the readability. Time in this novel is characterized

by remarkable fluidity. The lives that this novel depicts live on the edge of

abnormality. These are dangerously lived lives driven by focused passions.

The characters are uncompromising. These characters do not compromise.

They are mostly talented people given to their specific causes. The fire within

them may not be visible at times; but it is always there. Somehow adjustment,

compromise, and worldly wisdom seem to stand for average quality for these

writers. Ghosh also builds his extraordinary tale with the help of extraordinary

characters.

The Shadow Lines is written on an emotional thought, underlining and

explaining the small, universal truths of life. The true depiction of the mental

condition of children is so remarkable. It seems the author has relived his

childhood in this book. On a psychological ideas, the book roots personality

and identity in childhood. The narrator stands out as an adult rooted in his

childhood experiences. Whenever he experiences life, his reaction to it stems

out of his childhood impressions. How he takes cities like London, Calcutta or

Dhaka or people like his cousin Ila, or acquaintances like May and Nick-

everything springs from his childhood perceptions seems so natural. It seems

the only honest way of taking life and its experiences. The treatment of the

subject is simply overwhelming. Tridib is the narrator’s older cousin. His

impact on the narrator’s life is immense. Tridib and the narrator-child have a




30

special bond. They have in a way, conspired to look at the world with their

own eyes or rather Tridib’s eccentric, rational, detached eyes. When Tridib

tells the narrator about his childhood at London, the child-narrator tries to

imagine Tridib as a small boy and finally says “I had decided he had looked

like me” (The Shadow Lines 3). So while listening to stories of London, Cairo,

and other exotic places, the narrator travels, identifying himself completely

with the bigger, (almost perfect to his child’s eyes) role model. The narrator’s

identification with his hero i.e., Tridib is so intense that when asked for a

response, the narrator says “I was nervous now; I could see that he (Tridib) was

waiting to hear what ‘I was nervous now: I could see that he (Tridib) was

waiting to hear what I’d have to say and I didn’t want to disappoint him” (28).

Thus, begins his training at looking at things by Tridib’s standards.

It is a great fiction that always patterns itself on psychological truths.

For example, castration fear in male children is a major childhood theme in

psychoanalytical literature. Tridib encases this while telling a story to the

narrator and his younger brother Robi, He (Tridib) had smiled and gone on to

tell us in ghastly detail about the circumcision rites of one of the desert tribes.

And then, spectacles glinting, he had said: So before you leave you’d better

decide whether you would care to have all that done to your little wee- wees,

just in case you’re captured (19).

Another psychological truth that Ghosh successfully demonstrates is

accumulation of complexes in childhood and growing years. Rich and

influential relatives in the form of Mayadebi, Shaheb and Ila come to middle




31

class household of the narrator. To add to it, they come from different parts of

the world with strange tales. The complex is so deeply rooted in the narrator

that he cannot think of these big relatives that their worth in my eyes could be

reduced to something so arbitrary and unimportant as a blood relation. He says,

“I would not bring myself to believe that their worth in my eyes could be

reduced to something so arbitrary and unimportant as a blood relationship” (3).

This can be taken as clue to the narrator’s unsuccessful relationship with Ila.

He reduces himself so much in his own eyes that Ila never avactually notices

him except of course, after she has permanently damaged herself by marrying

Nick. The narrator loves lla but he cannot say so. He is in awe of her. The

inequality of their needs arises out of his sense of small worth. She introduces

him to Nick as a child and immediately he heaps it on himself as another

feather in his complexive cap. It is almost painful to see him as a child falling

a prey to inferiority complex. lla says, “He’s very big. Much bigger than you:

much stronger too. He’s very big. Much bigger than you” (49). After these

words of Ila, life never remains the same for the narrator,

After that day Nick Price whom I had never seen ….. became

a spectral presence beside me in my looking gass; growing with

me, but always bigger and better, and in some way more esirable-

I did not know what, except that it was so in Ila’s eyes and

therefore true (50)

The narrator’s fascination for Ila is well known to everyone in the

family. As a child he accepts humiliation when his mother exposes his




32

obsession with Ila’s expected visit to India. The child is exposed as being

vulnerable before Ila’s charms. Ila comes to know early in life that the narrator

needs her, not she meets him. It is an unequal relationship, right from the

beginning and the origin very much lies in the narrator’s middle class

background.

It is a first book of its own kind by an Indian English writer. In an

environment of magical realism, Ghosh’s In An Antique Land is like a breath of

fresh air. Like his other works, his sense of time is not very strict. Time floats

and mixes along with blending of fact and fiction, there is form of different

branches of knowledge- history, anthropology, philosophy, sociology and

religion. It is an interaction of the author with at least four languages and

cultures spread across continents and centuries.

The novel is divided in to six parts : Prologue, Lataifa, Nashaway,

Mangalore, Going Back, and Epilogue. It all began in 1942 when Ghosh read

an article by E. Strauss. The slave of MSH. 6 was referred here by a merchant

named Khalaf ibn Ishaq in Aden who in turn got the information by his friend

Abraham Ben Yiju in Mangalore, India. Ghosh was linked by the simple ideal

that any history of a slave to have survived all these centuries is nothing short

of a miracle. When all history is about kings, queens, their carpets, bathtubs,

court, courtiers, wars, foreign policy and so on. To find a slave is indeed a

wonder. Ghosh did not let go the opportunity and the novel opens, “The slave

of MSH.6 first stepped upon the stage of modern history in 1942” (In An

Antique Land 13).




33

The second appearance of the slave is in a letter included in a collection

by Prof.S.D.Goitein, Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders. Ghosh came across

this letter in the Bodleain Library at Oxford in the winter of 1978. As a student

of social anthropology, Ghosh was leafing through manuscripts. He read about

the very same Tunisian Jewish merchant Abraham Ben Yiju who came to India

via Egypt around 1130 A.D. Ben Yiju had a slave Bomma who was from

Tulunad in India. Ghosh writes,

I was a student, twenty two years old, and I had recently won

a scholarship awarded by a foundation established by a family of

expatriate Indians. It was only a few months since I had left

India and so I was perhaps a little more befuddled by my

situation than students usually are. At that moment the only thing

I knew about my future was that I was expected to do research

leading towards a doctorate in social Anthropology. I had never

heard of Cairo Geniza before that day, but within a few months I

was in Tunisia learning Arabic. At about the same time the next

year, 1980, I was in Egypt, installed in a village called Lataifa, a

couple of hours journey to the southeast of Alexandria. I knew

nothing then about the slave of MSH. 6 except that he had given

me a right to be there, a sense of entitlement (19)

These lines from the prologue of the novel vividly show the picture of a

young, enthusiastic and sincere researcher, emotionally attached to the subject

of his research. The names of the next three sections are names of places here




34

the writer went Lataifa, Nashaway, and Mangalore. Amitav Ghosh continues

clearly his picaresque style. In the episodic structure of the book, the author

himself is the protagonist and is referred as “Ya Amitab” by others.

The novel is journey based. Two Indians visit Egypt and Abraham

Ben Yiju visits India. He comes via Egypt and Aden. He lives in India for

seventeen long years. His constant companion is a fisherman, Bomma. Bomma

is a South- Indian. This South – Indian goes to Egypt on business trips on

numerous occasions as Yiju’s representative. The second visit to Egypt is

Ghosh himself. So it is found that these two journeys by two Indians to Egypt

are separated by centuries. It takes more than a decade for Ghosh to find out

all about this relationship between Yiju and Bomma, their respective

backgrounds and personalities. This ground also makes for an interface

between Egyptian and Indian civilizations. Ghosh, a thorough social

anthropologist catches the storehouse of old records in Babylon. It is the

synagogue of Benzra. This is perhaps the biggest single collection medieval

documents ever discovered. They were taken out of Egypt to Cambridge,

Princeton, Oxford and Leningrad. Ghosh assiduously locates Yiju’s documents

and is first struck by the unusual hybridity of language. The language is

Judseo-Arabic, a colloquial dialect of medieval Arabic written in Hebrew

script. Ghosh’s learning of Arabic proves valuable here. He deciphers all

documents and unravels the story of Ben Yiju and his slave Bomma. Ghosh’s

shows his keen knowledge of facts and figures in these descriptions.




35

The Calcutta Chromosome, like almost all other novels of Amitav

Ghosh, is an experimental work, except The Shadow Lines and The Glass

Palace none of what Ghosh has done clearly qualifies as fiction or history,

fantasy or thriller. It is such an united body of work. It has science, religion,

myth, transcendental philosophy, Indian superstitions, logic, and rationality.

Ghosh digs into one event, one pinpointed happening of the past. He

keeps investigating it till he finds patterns and parallels. It is wonderful to

watch this artist work. He selects an event that he feels is relevant to present

times. He establishes connections. He says what he wants to say using

symbols of past only as tools for the communication of his overall messages.

On the face of it, this book is about malaria. It is an attempt to rewrite the story

of Ronals is about malaria. It is an attempt to rewrite the story of Ronald

Ross’s discovery of the life cycle of malaria mosquito and how it causes the

disease to human beings. As such, this story is very much available in the

records of medical history. Ross is not new to Indians. Almost every student

of Indian schools has gone through a lesson on Ronald Ross, his discovery and

his winning the Nobel Prize for it. This British bacteriologist is more close to

people of Calcutta as he did his path breaking research in this city only. His

memorial arch at the entrance of the P.G.Hospital is part and parcel of Calcutta.

The fact that despite the sensational research, the disease still goes unabated,

taking its annual toll of human lives, generates feeling of sorrow.

Ross discovered the deadly female mosquito on 20th August 1897.

Except for this fact, Ghosh has totally departed from the known accounts of




36

this event. It is his own story. He has divided the book into two parts,

(i) August, 20: Mosquito Day and (ii) The Day After, L.Murugan is a scholar

of science. He is occupied with the idea of finding all the facts (known or less

known) about the malaria story. On World Mosquito Day 20th Aug., 1995, he

arrives in Calcutta. He is in search of the enigmatic Calcutta Chromosome.

This Calcutta Chromosome, is a abnormal chromosome. It is unusual because

it cannot be isolated and detected by standard techniques. Unlike our regular

chromosomes, it is not present in every cell. It is not even equally paired. It

does not go from one generation to the other. Ghosh daydreams that this

chromosome develops out of a process of recombination, which is unique to

every individual. It is found only in the non-regenerating tissue, the brain. It

can be transmitted through malaria. It is this stray DNA carrier that Murugan

calls The Calcutta Chromossome – a unique ‘biological expression of human

tracts that is neither inherited from the immediate gene-pool, nor transmitted

into it” (The Calcutta Chromosome 207)

As Murugan arrives at Calcutta, the very next day he mysteriously

disappears. At the heart of the narrative lies the events of these days. All other

strands of narrative are connected to this main event. The medical history of

malaria, Ross’s progress in his research, experiences of Antar, Murugan’s

former colleague at New York and some different incidents at Calcutta are

portrayed into a fictional fabric.

The major part of the story takes place in Calcutta in 1995. The novel

follows Murugan and his adventures closely. The laboratory of the P.G.




37

hospital of Calcutta is the place where Ronald Ross made the final

breakthrough in his research. The fact that Ross discovered the cause of

malaria in Calcutta, (India) has deeper connotations for those who are

conscious of colonization. In the whole world it was India with all its dirt,

garbge, and puddles that nurtured sufficient number of mosquitoes to make

the research possible. Since mosquito cannot be taken as symbol for

cleanliness, the place where it resides is naturally dirty. Ghosh, in fact,

uncovers the whole power politics of the West. This book is an attempt to

deconstruct Western atmosphere. It shows that the Western sense of

confidence and patronage is misplaced. It is a false notion that that it guides

the destiny of the post colonial nations. The narrative covers over a period of

hundred years. The cinematic devices of flash forward or flashback come

handy to Ghosh. As is clear, he mingles fact with fiction unobtrusively. At

one level the reader is willingly taken on a journey into time and at the same

time to different countries like America, England, Egypt and India. According

to his convenience Ghosh expands the actual time period of an event. This

highlights the parallels between two events that took place at two different

periods of time. This technique also builds contrasts between two events of

different periods.

The feature operating in the text of the novel is its questioning of the

past. All the historical fixities are questioned. Ghosh is obviously has doubts

towards the towering altitude given to a certain period or event. Murugan is the

voice of rationality. He knows certain discrepancy in Ronald Ross’s account of




38

‘Plasmodium B.’ Murugan is unable to free himself from the idea of

something being opponent in the medical history of malaria. He is preparing

article, “An Alternative Interpretation of Late 19th Century Malaria Research.

Is there A Secret History?”(127) Long back when Murugan was in New York

he had written a summary of his research in an article entitled, “Certain

Systematic Discrepancies in Ronald Ross’s Account of Plasmodium N”(132).

To his shock Murugan received a very opposed response from the scientific

community. All scientific journals rejected the paper. The fact that he doubted

Ross’s greatness costs him the membership of Science Society. He was called

a crank and an eccentric person. Naturally this did not help Murugan. He

became more and more obsessed. He began to reveal his ideas about the other

mind behind Ross’s discovery. His theory is that some persons systematically

interfered with Ross’s experiment and pushed Malaria research into the right

direction. He believes that Ronald Ross who was awarded the Noble Prize in

1906 for his work on the live cycle of the Malaria vector had been handed the

information on a plate. It was not his discovery at all. Someone else had

planted the idea in his head that Malaria parasite could be found in one of the

species of mosquitoes. Murugan is convinced that a big secret play was played

in 1895. Originally Ross was on a completely wrong track. Even Ross’s

mentor Patrick Manson, the noted Scottish bacteriologist who had written a

book on Filaria was on a wrong track. Both Manson and Ross thought that

Malaria parasite was transmitted from mosquitoes to human beings orally,

probably through drinking water. But almost overnight Ross changed his track




39

and on August 20th, 1897 he found the connection between Plasmodium

Zygotes and Anopheles Stephensil. Murugan finds it hard to swallow that Ross

could be successful in such a short span of time. Keeping the complexities

of the research in mind it ought to have taken longer period of time. His

curiosity and rationally force him to purse his search of what actually happened

and how it happened. Ghosh goes on to suggest that Ronald Ross had two

assistants, Mangala a sweeper woman and Laakhan (Lutchman), who is a

‘Dhooley-bearer.’

The Glass Palace is a popular book, in which Ghosh has changed

his style or subject matter but because the narrative is extended up to three

generations. This is, once again, a book about geographical entities, space,

distance and time. Many stories have been woven together. Loaded with too

many characters, it is a story of many families, their lives, and their

connections with each other. This novel of Amitav Ghosh is the story of an

Indian orphan who is transported to Burma by accident. The name of this

character is Raj Kumar. As a child, Raj kumar is remarkable for his exploring

spirit, keen perception, and his ability to take calculated risks. Rajkumar works

in a tea stall of a matronly lady Ma Cho. He loves exaggerating his age just to

feel like an adult. A well-travelled orphan, Raj Kumar is worldly-wise. Right

at the beginning of the narrative, the author drops enough hints for the

legitimacy of his narrative and his choice of a protagonist. Although, a child,

an orphan, yet this boy is established as bold, and remarkable. Once Raj

Kumar lands in Mandalay, his life-long search for places and people begins.




40

He is taken in by the city. “Long straight roads radiated outwards from the

walls, forming a neat geometrical grid. So intriguing was the ordered pattern

of these streets that Raj Kumar wandered far afield, exploring” (The Glass

Palace 5). And this explores that boy is a extremely poor in an alien city with

absolutely no acquaintances. Finally he goes to Ma Cho for job and he

receives a thorough disapproval and scolding at the very outset. But his keen

perception helps him to know “that this outburst was not aimed directly at him;

that it had more to do with the dust, the splattering oil and the price of

vegetables than with his own presence or with anything he had said” (6)

Ghosh is a genius at pointing out small details that actually make the

characters and the narrative real. Soon the boy Raj Kumar develops his sense

of belonging at the new place. Barriers are challenging to him. In fact, barriers

cause progress. If there would be no obstacles, who would think of ascending

and getting beyond. As he views the fort of Mandalay the crystal shining glass

palace, he instinctively knows that orphans like him cannot go there and yet

“No matter what Ma Cho said, he decided, he would cross the moat-before he

left Mandalay, he would find a way in” (7). It is this spark that sets Raj Kumar

apart for a life of success, adventure and prosperity.

The beginning pages of the novel place two aspects of female power

close together. On one hand goes the story of queen Supayalat who is an

expert in cruel court intrigues and palace politics and on the other hand a

twelve year old boy offers sweets to a ten year old vulnerable girl. The contrast

is too intense to be missed. Queen Supayalat is not an ordinary woman. The




41

baw is ineffectual and scholarly type of a person. But most unexpectedly

Supayalat in defiance of the protocols of palace intrigue, fell in love with her

husband, the king. His ineffectual good nature seemed to inspire a maternal

violence in her. In order to protect him from her family she stripped her

mother of their powers and sent her into a corner of the palace, along with her

sisters and co-wives. Then she set about ridding Thebaw of his rivals. She

ordered the killing of every member of the Royal Family who might ever be

considered a threat to her husband. Seventy-nine princes were slaughtered on

her orders, some of them were newborn infants and some too old to walk: “To

prevent the spillage of royal blood she had had them wrapped in carpets and

bludgeoned to death. The corpses were thrown into the nearest river” (38-39).

But the mystery of human nature is such that this most cruel person goes

on to live in exile, suffers captivity and humiliation for love for her husband.

The narrator observes :

What could love mean to this woman, this murderer, responsible

for the slaughter of scores of her own relatives? And yet it was a

fact that she had chosen captivity over freedom for the sake of

her husband, condemned her own daughters to twenty years of

exile (152)

It is not the duty of the novelist to solve all the confusions of human

nature; his work finishes with the truthful presentation of them.

Apart from characters this novel is very rich. There are revelant ideas

on the process of civilization, journey, hybridity, rootlessness, childhood and




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the process of growing etc. Out of these this novel focuses on two topics. The

concepts of journey, home, movement, new places and rootlessness are more or

less related. The second point of discussion at the level of ideas is olonization.

Ghosh’s concern about colonization is too great to be ignored.

The novel begins in a web of journey, chance, uncertainty and

orphanhood. These are related. The roadside food stall (dhaba) is a well-

recognized symbol of journey. The roadside food stall is also a place of current

news, cheap food, cheap sex, and temporary connections. The opining scene

sets the mood of the novel. It is a novel about many places, war and

displacement, exile and rootlessness. It also depicts human helplessness in

such a scenario. All that a human being can do is try to adjust, compromise,

live and above everything else form relationships. This Collector on one point

of the novel is intrigued when he comes to know of the pregnancy of upayalat’s

first daughter. He is disgusted. He is at a loss. His sense of class and decency

is deeply violated, “Was this love then: this coupling in the darkness, a princess

of Burma and Marathi coachman; this heedless mingling of sweat?” (152).

This story of human weakness gives birth to the concept of hybridity. No race

is pure; nor is any caste pure. Life is a mixture of DNA combinations and

permutations. Saya John is a fine example of this breed of hybridity. His

clothes are Western. He speaks English, Hindustani, and Burmese. His face

looks like that of Chinese. Saya himself makes fun of his amalgamated dentity,

….. They (Indian soliders) asked me this very question: how is

it that you who look Chinese and carry a Christian name, can




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speak our language? When I told them how this had come about,

they would laugh and say, you are a Dhobi Ka Kutta- a

washerman’s dog- Na Ghar Ka Na Ghat Ka- you don’t belong

anywhere either by the water or no land, and I’d say, yes that is

exactly what I am. He laughed, with an infectious hilarity and

Raj Kumar joined in (10)

This is a happiness of mutual sharing. Raj Kumar is as much a washerman’s

dog as Saya John. There is no humiliation between the two. This is simple

acceptance of fact.

The shift arrangements made by change and temporary homes appear

again and again in this novel. These things give this novel its contemporary

flavor. By this sense of shifting only the novel comes close to the reader of the

present times where movement and uncertainty have become the order of the

day.

Apart from these human scenes of colonization, Ghosh also deals with

the larger question of Europe’s greed. Everything becomes a resource to be

exploited- woods, water, mines, people, just everyone and everything. “….

Resources were being exploited with an energy and efficiency hither to

undreamed of” (66). Forests are cut on a very mass scale without giving

any thought to the hazards of environment that such an unthinking act would

cause. Burma becomes the mine of wealth for the British. “In a few decades

the wealth will be gone- all the gems, the timber and the oil- and then they too

will leave” (88).




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Ghosh has expanded the horizon of English language by adding ever

new linguistic registers and cultural terms which he has obtained through his

travel and his stay in various locations of the world. Hence an attempt has been

made in this study to focus upon the contributions he has made to enlarge

English vocabulary.

Apart from the different themes, the innovative narrative strategies that

Ghosh has introduced in his fictional works and travelogues have accorded a

world-wide readership to his writings. In this context it seems to be highly

relevant to analyse the narrative strategies that he has developed for his

fictional works.

Bakhtinian polyphony when transposed into Amitav Ghosh’s literary

works, undergo an artistic reworking. His novels become polyphonic when he

reveals them with voices of different narrators and characters. Some of the

speakers in his fictional world take contradictory philosophical and ideological

ways, but neither the character nor the narrator is subordinated to the authorial

voice. Through polyphony Ghosh deconstructs the accepted principles of

Eurocentric grand narratives and tries to bring to the forefront those who were

on the negative side of the binary; the subalterns, the marginalised, the

downtrodden and the oppressed. His novels, thus, foreground the need to erase

the boundary between two oppositions like superior/inferior, positive/negative

in such a way that the hierarchy implied by the opposition is thrown into

question.




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The different linguistic devices employed in his works are virtually the

trump cards used “to write back to an Empire” which used language as a

weapon to subjugate the colonised. Polyglossia, diglossia, heteroglossia and

code-switching are some of the conspicuous constitutive factors of the

linguistic experimentation that make Ghosh’s novels unique.




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