Opinion - News Analysis

In the great story-telling tradition, a novel that celebrates the human spirit

PHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN

AMITAV GHOSH AND THE "SEA OF POPPIES" : A man who knows he has a truly ripping yarn. A novel that is deeply and persuasively grounded in the great tradition of story-telling.

Britain formally abolished slavery in most of its Empire in 1833, but lost not time in reinventing it through a system of indentured servitude. Amitav Ghosh’s superb and compelling Sea of Poppies unfolds in 1838, with the Ibis being readied to ferry girmitiyas or indentured labourers to Mauritius. It is the eve of the first Anglo-Chinese war — a time when the East India Company, which profits hugely from the monopoly in the export of Indian-manufactured opium, is threatened by Chinese bids to throttle the trade.

The Ibis either has or will have a piece in all these histories. The schooner was used to transport slaves, is about to be refitted to export opium, and is suddenly commandeered to take girmitiyas to Mauritius. On its return, it will sail to China as a part of an armada for what will become known as the First Opium War. In Ghosh’s skilled hands, the vessel becomes a symbol of Empire’s sordid underbelly — slavery, the opium trade, indentured labour, and war.

The bulk of the Sea of Poppies is about the journey to the Ibis. Fate draws a varied set of people on the schooner for different reasons. For Deeti (the exploited young village woman at the heart of the story) and Kalua (the Dalit who saves her from her husband’s funeral pyre and then marries her), the Ibis is an opportunity to escape the wrath of her furious ex-in-laws. The orphaned Paulette Lambert, who disguises her identity and smuggles herself on board, also seeks escape — from the threat of an arranged marriage and the suffocation and depravities in the household of the English merchant (Burnham) where she is raised. We have the effete and trusting Calcutta aristocrat, Neel Rattan, who is dependent on the opium trade; unable to pay his debts to his British creditor, he is accused in a forgery case, and convicted and sentenced to spend time in a penal settlement in Mauritius.

On board are also an accountant obsessed with bowel movements and prone to spiritual fantasies (Baboo Nob Kissin); a half-Indian, half-Chinese convict (Ah Fatt); a man of mixed race who is promoted to second mate (Zachary Reid); and two British officers, a malicious First Mate who has no redeeming characteristics (Jack Crowle) and an ineffective Captain (Chillingworth) who deludes himself into believing that he has his opium habit under control.

Ghosh’s narrative demands that the lives of his central characters intersect before fate casts many of them on the same ship. For instance, Paulette, who is attracted to Zachary Reid, is the subject of the unwanted attentions of Judge Kendalbushe, the man who convicts Neel Rattan, who is accused of forgery by Burnham, whose accountant is Baboo Nob Kissin. Surprisingly though, not one of the main characters is your typical indentured labourer — the kind of person who signed a girmit (agreement) that forced him or her into debt, bondage and, more often than not, permanent exile.

Manned by a motley group of lascars, who “know themselves to be from one part or another of the subcontinent,” and who speak in a language that is a medley of tongues, the Ibis represents at once an intriguing clash and an amalgamation of cultures. Identities are left behind, secrets are spilled, and bonds are forged as the ship makes its journey out of Calcutta. If the “laws of the land have no hold on the water” (as Captain Chillingworth menacingly reminds the passengers), then neither does customary prejudice. There is a sense of solidarity awakened by the recognition of a shared fate, of being “all in the same boat”, all “children of the ship.” “From now on, and forever afterwards,” says a passenger, “we will all be ship-siblings — jahaz-bhais and jahaz-bhens — to each other. There’ll be no difference between us.”

Much will be written on the painstaking research that has gone into the making of this novel, which unearths, among other things, the appalling scale of the opium trade in India. But the real strength of Sea of Poppies is that it is deeply and persuasively grounded in the great tradition of story-telling, which brings characters and situations alive and develops its themes without ever being cute, clever, wordy, or pretentious. This is the work of a man who knows he has a truly ripping yarn — the digressions swirl like eddies and crosscurrents within the main narrative stream — and is happy simply to tell it.

For a deeply political novel, Ghosh adopts a tone of self-possession and restraint that highlights the triumph of the human condition in the face of extreme adversity. Deeti, Kalua, Neel Rattan, Baboo Nob Kissin and others are invested with a sense of self-possession and dignity through their worst physical and emotional traumas.

Ghosh has written several acclaimed novels before but the Sea of Poppies, the first of a planned series of three novels, is indisputably the finest and most enjoyable work from his pen yet. When the Ibis trilogy is written, it will be no surprise if it goes down as a classic, not just of Indian writing in English but of modern fiction.

(Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh, Penguin/Viking, 515 pages, Rs. 599.)

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu