The Hindu : Front Page : A seasoned Dilliwallah is back home

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Thursday, Jun 19, 2008
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A seasoned Dilliwallah is back home

Kunal Diwan

– PHOTO: SANDEEP SAXENA

POPPING IN: Seasoned author Amitav Ghosh in Delhi with his latest book, “Sea of Poppies”.

NEW DELHI: A pleasure as well as a privilege is how the widely acclaimed writer Amitav Ghosh described his homecoming to Delhi, a city that was instrumental in enhancing his formative experiences at the good old St. Stephen’s College.

Interacting with a lively audience on the occasion of a book reading session at Nehru Memorial Library and Museum here on Wednesday evening, Mr. Ghosh said though his days on the North Campus of Delhi University were an “extraordinary moment in time with everyone enriching everyone else, teaching had little to do with it. We learnt from our peers, and I still consider following their careers to be an illuminating exercise”.

In town to promote his latest novel, “Sea of Poppies”, the celebrated Bengali author -- whose wordy creations have spanned diverse settings such as the quest for the malarial vector and the ebb and flow in the fortunes of indentured labourers -- said the most remarkable characteristic of novels stemming from migrant issues was that they embodied the peculiar insecurities of communities on the verge of departure from their land.

Mesmerising the audience with insights on the painstaking research that went into “Sea of Poppies”, Mr. Ghosh said there was a gap in knowledge as far as the impact of the opium trade on social history was concerned.

“Till the 1920s, around 20 per cent of the revenue was generated by the opium trade and most of it was sourced from the Bengal Presidency. Since a large amount of the drug was clandestinely shipped to China under British rule, this export of contraband may have incalculably influenced the way the Chinese perceive India,” he said.

Mr. Ghosh also answered queries concerning the use of multiple dialects and twangs in his book and said he considered the 20th Century English language to be prude and less accommodating when compared with its flexible 19th Century cousin. He credited the innumerable and unmentionable punning sessions at Doon School in Dehra Dun for cultivating in him the gift of flavoured, multi-generic writing skills.

The first in a planned trilogy of books, “Sea of Poppies” has as its central motif a huge ship, “Ibis”, that is home to a motley array of characters sailing across the Indian Ocean to the Mauritius Islands.

Like all sensitive practitioners of his craft, the snow-haired writer maintained that he was always intrigued by the “lesser pleasures” that life had to offer, that despite steep odds and adverse circumstances people continued to eat, sleep, sing and carry on with their lives unmindful of the abject poverty that was in existence in parts of India. The greatest resource of the human being, he said, was that they were able to find pleasure in small things.

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