Write of Passage

This second volume of the Ibis Trilogy tells of Parsi trader Bahram Modi,whose personal fortunes depend on China’s decision to ban the illegal import of opium,which brings slow and certain ruin to its citizens. Aboard the Anahita as Bahram battles with the ethics of opium trade,onboard the Redruth,Paulette,a feisty French orphan,who travelled in disguise on the Ibis,hopes to find a rare kind of flower.  Most of the older characters have silently slipped away but a few like Neel,the erstwhile maharaja,appear with renewed vigour,as he becomes Bahram’s munshi in this volume. Through intimate stories of people,this book provides a larger exploration of cross-cultural influences,inter-national politics and free trade.

Ghosh believes he shares similarities with Neel,as together they ponder over the “kismat of words”. In The Ibis Chrestomathy,which Neel pens late into the night,he tracks the fate of words that have sailed from the east and have been naturalised into English. Ghosh explains,“Neel is someone who I know deeply — his love for words,his interest in etymology. We share the same pleasure in discovery.”

Ghosh revels in words like a child frolicking in the snow. He marvels at their shape,throws them in the air,tastes them on his tongue and sculpts them into different forms. Deeti,a leading character in Sea of Poppies,a village woman from Bihar,who escaped on the Ibis,speaks a mixture of Bhojpuri and Kreol. “Bon-dye! Are you a fol dogla or what? Don’t be ridikil: the whole thing,from start to fini took just a few minits,and all that time,it was nothing but jaldi-jaldi,a hopeless golmal,tus in dezord,” she cries in indignation in River of Smoke. Bahram speaks a strange diction of pidgin with Chi-mei,a Chinese washerwoman and his lover. In one of their first meetings,Chi-mei asks him,“Mister Barry? Catchi,no catchi sing-song girl?” He replies,“Mister barry no wanchi sing-song girl. Wanchi Li Shiu-je.”

Even while admitting to reading dictionaries for pleasure,Ghosh clearly doesn’t believe in them. “Words,like the lives of people,are lived in context,” he says,“each word has its own personality.” With context providing meaning,Ghosh has forfeited glossaries and the italicisation of “foreign” words. He opts instead for an authenticity where people speak a mishmash of languages,governed by the heat of emotions and the sounds of their environment rather than the rules of grammar. 

If Ghosh enjoys performing sleight of hand with words and juggling grammar,he carries a similar sense of play within him. At 54,he takes his work but not himself seriously. His halo of white hair and black-framed glasses add gravitas to his rubicund face and ready laugh. Embarrassed easily,the red rises quickly in his face. When,first a rope,followed by a window cleaner suddenly slide down the glass pane of a seven-star Delhi hotel,he immediately takes out his phone and shoots a photograph. “This place is surreal,” he says,enjoying the interruption.

The pleasure Ghosh derives from life around him and worlds long lost,wafts through River of Smoke. Set up as historic fiction,it recreates China and the traders of the early 19th century with the precision of a figurative painter. Detailing the heady fragrance of wisteria blooms,the grandeur of the “palace-boat” (Anahita) or the products at the “Clothes Market”,where everything from penis sheaths to Sulu skirts to Bengal saris were bought and sold — Ghosh creates cinematic shots for his reader.

The acknowledgment section provides only a preview of the countless collections of Chinese state papers,accounts of the opium war,and encyclopaedias on gardening that he pored over to create this realism. His sources stretch to bibliophiles who contact him through his website,offering help with maps and ledgers. As an author who writes with the eye of an anthropologist,does he worry that the breadth of his research and the multitude of details could overwhelm the story? “I am worried now,” he says,breaking into a merry laugh,“Maybe my books should come with a blurb reading,‘This is not a happy romp in the playgrounds of culture.’” Waiting for the chuckles to cease,he adds,“I just put in the stuff that interests me. In a sense,the world I’m writing about doesn’t exist anymore. I have to assemble it brick by brick. When you write fiction,you have to persuade your readers that this place existed in the sounds and smells. That can’t be done by only staging the plot.”

In a small,delightful section in River of Smoke,he describes an encounter between Bahram and Napoleon in 1816. Bahram is on his way to England on the HCS Cuffnells and crosses paths with Napoleon Bonaparte who has been exiled. “…Bahram took the opportunity to observe the General closely. His build reminded him of one of his mother’s Gujarati sayings: ‘tukki gerden valo haramjada ni nisani — a short neck is a sure sign of a haramzada.’ But he noted also his piercing gaze,his incisive manner of speaking,his sparing but emphatic use of his hands,and the half smile that played on his lips.” While Ghosh might take a few liberties in conjuring the General,he does so within the confines of facts. While researching at the Greenwich Maritime Museum,he came across the diary of a trader,who sailed on the Cuffnells,from England to Canton,and arrived at Cape Town,there he heard of Napoleon’s exile. Much of the Napoleon scene draws from that diary. “You can’t think up such stories,” says Ghosh with a twinkle in his eye.

As an author of more than 10 books who wrote his first novel before 30,he has grown accustomed to the hoopla that follows the release of his books. But he is no veteran of it. Nor is he a regular at the numerous literary festivals,where authors go to be seen. Even while admitting these events form a part of the world that he belongs to,he says,“I would much rather not go.” He seems happier drinking cups of Darjeeling tea and sitting directly in the draft of the air conditioner.

He obliges the requests of photographers and mediapersons,but given the slightest chance,he slips his hands back into his Nehru jacket and retreats into a spot of shade. When asked to strike an artificial pose,he retorts “What will my readers think?” When a fan appears with a bag of six books authored by him,he willingly autographs each one. The admirer leaves and Ghosh says to no one in particular,“What would one do without one’s readers?”

While he studied at Delhi University and worked at the Indian Express in the late ’70s,Delhi has fallen off Ghosh’s map. He now divides most of his time between the waterfronts of Goa and the alleys of Brooklyn in New York. He still remembers his apprenticeship at the Indian Express,where he read proofs in the print room and covered the higher education beat. He would be told to make an article from a municipal councillor’s press release. “It makes you inventive,” he says warmly.

Belonging to a middle-class Bengali-speaking family,India has been the essential terrain of Ghosh’s literary works. However,India,which provided the anchor to his early books like The Circle of Reason (1986) and The Shadow Lines (1988),has become a subterranean presence in his later works,which he says maps his own life as he spends longer and longer periods away from here.

But for Ghosh,India is not merely a geographic shape on a map. Instead,India is an entity changed by Indians outside. He explores this through the role Indians in South East Asia played in India’s freedom struggle in The Glass Palace (2000). While the writings of many Indian authors,especially those from the diaspora,are awash with issues of identity and belonging,Ghosh’s characters are seldom perplexed by their in-between position. “I do not understand what identity means. I don’t have a single identity. People in India have multiple identities. Identity is not what it’s about,” he explains. 

Taught the alphabet by his mother,Ghosh has been reading ever since he remembers. Living in his private universe of books and writing,he keeps a distance from the numerous reviews and essays on his work. He feels that engaging with those voices takes away from his autonomy. His wife,fellow author Deborah Baker,reads the first draft of all his books,but he doesn’t want other critics’ voices buzzing in his head. “When I feel my writing days are over,I will read everything the critics have said,” he says,breaking into a smile,“Yes…I hope that day is very far away.”

Excerpt

For many years Bahram had regarded the fledgling township of Singapore as a junglee joke. In the old days,when sailing through the Straits,Bahram had made a point of stopping not at Singapore but at Malacca,which was one of his favourite cities: he liked the location,the severe Dutch buildings,the Chinese temples,the whitewashed Portuguese church,the Arab souq,and the galis where the long-settled Gujarati families lived – and food -lover that he was,he had also developed a great partiality for the banquets that were served in the houses of the city’s Peranakan merchants.

In those days Singapore was just one of many forested islands,clogging the tip of the straits. On its southern side,at the mouth of the river,there was a small Malay kampung: ships would sometimes drop anchor nearby and send their longboats over for fresh waters and provisions. But the island’s jungles were notorious for their tigers,crocodiles,and venomous snakes; no one lingered any longer than was necessary.

When the British chose that unpromising location for a new township,Bahram,like many others,had assumed that the settlement would soon be reclaimed by the forest: why would anyone choose to stop here when Malacca was just a day’s sail away? Yet,as the years went by,despite his personal preference for Malacca,Bahram had been forced to yield,with increasing frequency,to his ship’s officers,who claimed that the port facilities were better in Singapore — Mr Tivendale’s conveniently situated boatyard was especially to their liking: they frequently cited it as the best in the region.

Excerpted with permission from Penguin Books India from River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh Hamish Hamilton Rs.699