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High on A Sea of Poppies

It’s a hard habit to break after getting acquainted with the poppy flower-power generation in Amitav Ghosh’s latest book.

Fields of the cropform the backdrop;opium dens, andpeople in torment on a ship makea heady combination for a novel story which hasflashes of brilliantwriting totug at the heart strings.

Indian authorGhosh doesn’t gloss much over fiction and pegshis periodwork on society of the time as he lays bare shared destinies on the deck of the Ibis. This is a believable tale of bonding where the past is purged to throw up a brave newgroup who are ready to take on the world.

Ghosh tells a poignant, grim tale like it is, delving into situations while making a skimpy sketch of emotionsburning downhis characters.

He makesan attempt to be an impartial observer in the wake of cultural, religious and racial lesionsof 19th century India following the advent and rise of the British East India Company. But with his Indian heart in place, the effort hasn’t been entirely successful.

British influence spread quickly to the Far East through trade in opium. Vast swathes of land in the north and east of India were used for poppy cultivation and the extraction of the black drug. Millions of landholding farmers were soon staring at poverty without a means of livelihood. Migration for most was an act of desperation.

The authorstrings togetherstrands of history into his narrative, which stretches all the way from Baltimore in the United States to Calcutta in British India and Canton
 in China.
Indians were then in the ‘infancy of civilisation’ as prominent opium trader Benjamin Burnham of Calcutta would have us believe.

In an era when it was common to bootnative browns, Burnham swears by his Christian faith and free trade. “Free trade (in opium) is Jesus Christ,’’ he proclaims like a true zealot. He is prone to kinky spells of chastisement with a broom brandished by Paullete, an orphaned French girl in his care.

Ghosh also offers the reader a peek into acountry slipping into decadence and plagued by social evils like Sati (burning a widow on the funeral pyre of her dead husband), caste, untouchability and the zamindari 
(feudal) system.

The characters keep coming well into part two of the novel as the author sets the stage for their voyage of liberation. The prose is aided by a generous helping of ‘Hinglish’, lascar slang, Hindi, Bengali and Bhojpuri which native English readers mayfind distracting.

Ghosh’s grasp of shipping terms and his description of the life at sea makes fascinating reading. Lascar Serang Ali is his mascotand he serenades him like amaster helmsman.

Of the other characters, Deeti is a revelation. She is saved from the Sati pyre by Kalua, a low caste, who she later marries. She’s the big sister who will one day plant poppies in a new settlement when freedom comes. Zamindar Neel Rattan Halder (‘Rotten’ to the British) is brought low from his pedestal and made to clean up the crap of his fellow jailbird goingby the queer name Ah Fatt, of Parsi-Chinese lineage. Redemption for both comes calling on the high seas.

Zachary Reid, born to a black father and white mother also manages to emerge from the shadows of his past on the ship. Paulette is the French lass who sails away from a marriage proposal of convenience.

There are many more complex characters thatbob up in the ocean of life — that’s the main problem with the novel — linking characters to context becomes achore.It is advisedtoread it in one long sitting ... maybe two, or else it drags you down, unless you’re a confirmed‘Indophile’.

Ghosh pushes the pen towards the end, slaying his book’s demons in two swift incidents.

Perhaps, he was in a hurry to begin his sequel, the second in his planned Ibis trilogy. As for the reader, this opens asea ofpossibilities foranotherspell of addiction.

allan@khaleejtimes.com

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