Gone the Land, Gone the Ties

~By Anshika Paliwal 

 
The Jnanpith Award winner novelist Amitav Ghosh has put his heart
and soul into the first volume of the Ibis trilogy ‘Sea of
Poppies’: nominated for the Man Booker Prize in the year 2008. The
book is set back in the mid-19 century when India was a colony of the
British. It unfolds the story of various characters who have their dark
secrets, which they bury behind to start a new desirable life. The story
has two major themes of British India into focus: The Slave trade
(trading slaves for the cultivation of sugarcane on distant islands like
Mauritius) and the cultivation of opium in Bihar and Bengal for the
Chinese market and. The name of the novel ‘Sea of Poppies’ is based
on these two trends of colonial India. Sea denoting the slave trade
and poppies indicating the opium cultivation. 
  
Authoring a historical novel requires a lot of exact details and
knowledge of events. Indeed, Ghosh has taken care of it and tried to
make the events of the story as realistic as possible. Right from
choosing the places to describing the characters belonging to
those places without eliminating the essence and authenticity of it,
Ghosh has breathed life into each of them. Ghosh quite smoothly has
inserted his research into the story without letting it exceed the
purpose of it in the scenes. Be it describing the working
of Sudder Opium Factory in depth or two various descriptions of the
Ibis in the first and the second part of the novel, Ghosh did not let the
details divert the story from the characters’ situation.  
  
Unlike other Indian authors of English novels, Amitav Ghosh has
preferred to use local slang and anglicized words along
with modifying the spellings of English, Hindi as well as Bengali to
match them with their phonetics. In Ghosh’s words, “he altered
the bhosho of the Lascars, Malum Zikri, Burra Sahib, Nob Kissin
Baboo who Mr. Burnham called my Nut-Kissin Baboon and Burra
Beebee of Pugli Paulette” to make the book more naturalistic in
terms of Indian dialect. The usage of such words makes the characters
look more connected to the places where they have spent most years
of their lives. Furthermore, the author has given proper translations of
the Bhojpuri language he used for dialogues of people living in the
inlands of Bihar. He did not fail in naming the characters based on
their cast, creed, race, and socioeconomic status in the society.
It indicates the class and urban-rural divide. Not only language but the
author has also specified the details of Indian food, 19th century
furniture, religious beliefs and practices, hobbies of Zamindars and
Sahibs, cultural activities, marriages, funerals, punishments, laws
framed by British, social differences, sexuality, dresses, lifestyles and
what not.  
  
The novel catches the interest of its readers right in the first chapter
when the story begins with Deeti aka Kabootri Ki Maa. However, it
has multiple main characters that can confuse non-readers. Another
downside of it is, frequently used cross-cultural fused language.
Despite it being a striking feature of the story, repeated usage of it
sometimes creates a lack of understanding of the context of
characters' dialogues.  
Amitav Ghosh has wonderfully romanticized and dramatized his
novel by writing some of the scenes that are worth reading again. For
instance, the first encounter of Paulette and Zachry Reid.
Horrified Deeti passing through the chambers of the Sudder Opium
Factory- had it not been the suffering from the news of her husband’s
accident at the factory, she would have enjoyed each moment of the
journey from her inland village to the Gazipur Factory. It is not just
the selection of words but the method of interlinking situations of the
author that makes the book readable.  
Overall, Sea of Poppies is an excellent book to read. It is available
online as well as in your nearby bookstores. It talks about how the sea
washes away old ties and brings a new you into your own lives.