Amitav Ghosh’s novel Sea of Poppies is that rare creation: stupendously researched, and a corking good read. And it ends so tantalisingly that one could be forgiven for suspecting Ghosh of harbouring a nasty streak of sadism; the reader is left hanging haplessly with only one promise to sustain him — that he will be able to get his hands on the next installment of the trilogy in two years’ time.

Ghosh has said that he wanted to write a novel on the theme of migration, but whether he intended to or not, Sea of Poppies is also an illuminating and thought-provoking book on globalisation. The book is possibly more useful to anyone wishing to understand the socio-economic effects of globalisation than Thomas Friedman’s rather overrated The World is Flat. Sea of Poppies tells us how international commerce transforms lives and destinies at all levels of society, bringing both ruination and good fortune.

This is the background against which the story unfolds: It’s 1838, and The East India Company has been making incredible profits by exporting opium grown in India to China and turning millions of Chinese into desperate addicts. But the Chinese emperor has now banned the opium trade and Company Bahadur is lobbying the British government to order a military assault on China to force it to reopen the market (This would become what is known now as the First Opium War). Meanwhile, the Company has also coerced all farmers in today’s Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to cultivate only opium. As the opium trade collapses, millions face starvation, since they don’t grow any food crops anymore, nor do they have the money to buy food. But the Company has discovered another revenue stream; it has begun supplying Indian labour to plantations in Mauritius. The merchants make money, and are also saved from the social unrest that could result from mass starvation in India’s most fertile plain.

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