The reason for this post lies with the beginning of my next book: The Hungry Tide. Actually, I was planning on buying this book as a gift for a friend’s birthday and now in retrospect ( 200 odd pages later) it seems I should have opted for this than for two other non English native speaking authors.
After having been swept away by the epic magical fable of Macondo by GGM (yes, I read 100 Years only now! And I wonder why? Maybe it has to do with the fact that LiToC didn’t impress me much when I had borrowed it from a senior in college and had to return it rather abruptly.) I wondered if Mr. Ghosh would stand up to the mystical village of Macondo. I am a little extra judgemental, critical, cynical of authors of Indian origin. The very few I’ve read have generally tended to write about identity, family ties and culture... largely having been part of the diaspora that experiences these crises frequently. But Ghosh had been impressive through his skilful execution of radically different genres through Calcutta Chromosome, In An Antique Land and Shadow Lines.
I picked up the book yesterday and 200 pages hence I have spent a half my time googling and google map searching the whole Sunderban archipelago. In his afterword he cites the influences and people the story is loosely based on. On googling Annu Jalais my first reaction was that I was looking at Piyali Roy. The short cropped hair, the wiry frame. Just that Piyali Roy in my head is a little shorter than Annu Jalais in the jpeg image. Marichjhapi (I'm making this into a separate post), Francois Bernier and Annu Jalais’s studies are ALL clawing away at my limited attention simultaneously. And the background of the tide country, the delicate relationship between man and his lethal predator all converge together teasing my curiosity into a frenzied madness.
I have been to Sunderbans, a huge family outing on one of the many grand get together that are the hallmark of Bengali families. My uncle, on his once-in-two year visits to India in tow with 3 children and my kakima, is the lead character of these shows, taking it upon himself to force everyone to come for these vacations. My childhood is littered with memories of 18 people crammed into my grandmothers flat making plans simultaneously on where to go and what all can be done; everyone pushing their own agenda. So yes, we once happened to agree upon Sunderbans, and set off on a bus from the city to Gosaba. Other than an accident our bus was involved in, that trip would be remembered for a string of mishaps and of course a tiger sighting claimed by my mother and aunts. We firmly maintained it was a mud covered wolf/dog they had seen, too disappointed to admit that we missed seeing the great and elusive RBT. Otherwise, for me and my cousins those 3 days on a tourism dept. launch/ferry was more of running around mad and occasionally listening to tiger stories from the boatmen.
But now, reading this book and living just a 100 kms away from bhatir-desh (tide country); reading about Francois Bernier, of his travels in this dark corner of the world some 300 years back is just too cruel on my imagination. The thought of it chills my bones, the sense of adventure fills my body. Just like stories (actually fact, rather than fiction) of Heyerdahl’s crossing of the Pacific and Shackleton’s doomed Antartica expedition. Phew... who can dare say that I’m getting older!
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