It is a summer of many challenges in Delhi. The wind is hot and persistent. People on the road are covered in sweat by afternoon; by evening, their shirts tell the tale. It takes a hardy soul to step out; hardier to sit waiting for the one and only Amitav Ghosh to turn up for his appointment at the appropriately named Taj Mahal hotel in the city of the sultans and emperors.
When he finally does appear, running his fingers through his still significant hairline, Ghosh drives away all thoughts about the hot weather. He is cheerful, in a restrained sort of way. He is calm and, dare I say it, cool; his white shirt contrasting with a black sleeveless jacket and his black-rimmed spectacles. He is a little under the weather, his press agents inform me. Ghosh merely says, “I have had a tiring schedule in London. Now this change of weather is a little challenging.” If understatements could get a conversation on wheels, this is as good as one.
So we settle down to have a less-than-frenetic, though not exactly leisurely, conversation. Sea of Poppies , River of Smoke and now Flood of Fire ; the water is certainly not calm, quiet or tranquil for the much-feted author. “Water is anything but calm, quiet or tranquil. It is a restless element,” Ghosh says, his placid exterior giving way to frank expression. If water seems to be the element with which one book flows into the other, every book in this Ibis Trilogy stands by itself, independent of the other two. So, if you missed River of Smoke — and a few have, considering the book was very dense with a layered narrative — you could still pick up a copy of Flood of Fire and not feel like a late-comer to an Amitav Ghosh masterclass. “There is no linear connection. When I started the first part of the trilogy, the way I thought of the relationship between the books was like the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Each book is quite different from the other. It is not like one long book divided into three books.”
Even as Ghosh undertakes a three-week tour of the country with eight launches in cities like New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune etc, there are whispers in the international media that Flood of Fire may not be the concluding book in the series; that Ghosh, said to be so much in love with the characters, may not be averse to a fourth or even fifth book. Ghosh denies any such move. “The trilogy is over,” he says with proprietary finality. “But I might write about the characters. Some characters refuse to go away. I have given a long time of my life to this trilogy. When I started the series, my children were teenagers; today they have picked up jobs.”
The series is high on research. Ghosh went to many places in China, besides Hong Kong and Singapore to go through sepia-tinted papers and wrinkled documents in libraries. “It all started in 2004, but I was thinking of this trilogy before that; ever since I wrapped up The Glass Palace .”
It must have been an arduous journey considering not much is written about the Opium Wars in China in the 19th century and the Indian connection. “It was a very different research,” admits Amitav preferring the word ‘different’ over ‘difficult’. “There is no primary research. On the Indian presence in Canton, so little has been written. Historians have tended to write the military history of the war but the Opium War was very much an Indian war — finances, transport vessels, Indian Parsis, Bohras.” His books have introduced the readers to the war and its Indian angle. It must be a difficult task to research. “It was but I always wanted to be fair to my characters, even the much-hated opium characters.” Incidentally, the shadow of the war hovers over everything; the latest book, like the other two, cannot be called as just another war narrative. “War is in the backyard but it maps the book.”
In Flood of Fire , Ghosh does not shy away from telling us which side of the colonial debate he stands on. He writes, “Secure in the knowledge that there is no greater freedom, no greater cause for pride, than to be subjects of the British Empire,” adding, “On one side stands a race that is mired in depravity, tyranny, self-conceit and evil; ranged on the other side are the truest, most virile representatives of freedom, civilization and progress that history has ever known.” The seasoned author who has been nominated for the Man Booker, Man Asian and Man Booker International Prizes, merely smiles and admits a trifle self-consciously, “Of course, I know which side of the divide I stand. Is it not inevitable?”
For a man who has penned lakhs of words on displacement and departure, it does appear inevitable. More so when you write about migration and on your literary canvas are relations between the two biggest colonies in Asia and the biggest coloniser from Europe. And at the background of it all, the Opium Wars, which forced China to step from medieval times to modern era, albeit in extremely painful fashion. “It was all about opium, yes, but I was clear about one thing that it was not a story that deserved to be told in a single book.” So, it was told across 1600 pages through three novels. Not a mean feat even for somebody whose books have been translated into 20 languages. Incidentally, just a few weeks ago, he lost out on the Man Booker International Prize to László Krasznahorkai.
This comes some time after he agreed to accept the Israeli Dan David Prize, worth $1 million. Slightly ruffled, Ghosh says, “For me there is a difference between the State and a civil war. For instance, I have just spent a month in the U.A.E. and found many people terribly oppressed. But, I repeat, civil society and the State are different. I am clear on the Palestine issue and have said whatever I had to.”
The same is true of the Ibis Trilogy too. “These are not easy books. These are fat, dense books wonderfully gratifying, happy and pleasuring,” says Ghosh, offering a hint of the things to come. “A compilation of my lectures at the University of Chicago should be the next book.”
As I step out of Diwan-e-Khas after a chat with the khas author, I head towards the porch. The sun is still bright but it has lost some of its intensity. Instead of the dreaded loo , a nice, not-so-gentle breeze is beginning. A few minutes later, there are the tiniest rain drops too. Soon, they form a polka-dot pattern on the dust-laden road. Raindrops, river, sea, flood, Amitav Ghosh. The bond seems long lasting.
