Review of The Hungry Tide
Amitav Ghosh was
born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He studied in
Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria and is the author of The Circle of Reason, The
Shadow Lines, In an Antique Land,
Dancing in Cambodia, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide and River of
Smoke. The Hungry Tide is the
sixth literary undertaking of Amitav Ghosh. His
greatest gift as a writer may be his sense of place. A landscape, a city, a
village on the edge of a desert: it is these images that we summon from his
novels. Perhaps this is what makes him such a master of the travel narrative.
The Hungry Tide is a story that presents one
part of India that is mostly ignored, mysterious and unaccounted- the Sundarbans.
The title The Hungry Tide is very apt
and suitable for this novel. Though Ghosh does not associate hunger for sexual
cravings, he suggestively refers hunger in terms of love. For the novel
presents two sets of triangle love; first is that of Nirmal- Kusum- Horen and
secondly it is that of Kanai- Piya- Fokir. Ghosh portrays hunger in the literal
sense of the word, as he shows the poor people settled in these islands
fighting with the environment to get their daily meal. For the sake of a
handful of rice, the men had to risk their lives. As a result so many young men
perished, leaving their young wives widowed and their children fatherless, who
spent “a lifetime of dependence and years of abuse and exploitation” (81).
Again the fact that Fokir himself and many others have lost their lives due to
the violent tide which seemed to be satisfying its hunger by eating all the
living and non living things that came upon its way, shows clearly that the
title The Hungry Tide is apt and
suitable for the novel.
Though the
purpose of the writer behind writing such a novel is not clearly stated
anywhere in the novel, we can guess that one possible reason for doing so was to
very beautifully knit incidents that are important in history and a novel that
gives importance to the beauty and mesmerizing power of nature together. The
novel which has 430 pages is divided into two parts- ‘The Ebb: Bhata’ and ‘The Flood: Jowar’. Most of the chapters, especially
those which portray Nirmal’s account about the massacre incident that took
place in Morichjhanpi, which happened in the past, end with small poems like:
“already
know by instinct
we’re
not comfortably at home
in
our translated world.” (222)
The narrative is
slow and long, often covering over the previous happenings. The ending of the
novel is not very predictable. The novel that is written in second person
narrative employs the narrative technique though at certain instances we find
the writer employing the descriptive technique also. For instance, at times the
writer gives description about the beauty of nature.
The novel is set in the Sundarbans, the
archipelago of islands that lie between the sea and the plains of Bengal, on
the easternmost coast of India. The island and the residents in it are always
under the threat of wild animals like tigers and crocodiles and also from the
tide that can any time turn to be violent and wash off the entire island. It to
this island that Piyali Roy, of Indian parentage but stubbornly American and
Kanai Dutt, a sophisticated Delhi based businessman arrives. Kanai has returned
to the island on the request of his aunt, a local figure, who has made such a
request to Kanai for the first time after the death of her husband, a political
and radical figure who died mysteriously in the aftermath of a local uprising.
When Piya, who is on the track of a rare variety of river dolphin, hires Fokir,
an illiterate but proud local man to guide her through the backwaters, Kanai
becomes her translator. From this moment the tide begins to turn. Though the novel
ends with the death of Fokir we can be sure that he will continue to live in
the minds of all the people in the island because of the initiatives that Piya
has taken under his name. Therefore we cannot say that the novel ended in a sad
tone but can surely say that it ended with a hope that the initiatives taken by
Piya will be successful in the long run.
The novel becomes interesting because of the
style employed by Amitav Ghosh. He wrote this novel in a postmodern style. The
story travels throughout time and space, creating an account that has an
asymmetrical flow. In the novel, he shuttles between the Morichjhanpi incidents
from Nirmal’s point of view and the present day travels of Piya, Kanai and
Fokir. This time travel is a vital aspect of the story. Another trait of Amitav
is that he beautifully mixes fiction and fact that it is difficult to
differentiate between the two. He touches upon various topics like refugees,
freedom and war, life in Sundarbans, the absence of development, women
trafficking etc. All these topics are very relevant even today as these things
happen even today. The Morichjhanpi massacre incident of 1978-79, when
government of West Bengal forcibly evicted thousands of Bengali refugees who
had settled on the island, forms a background for some parts of the novel. The
novel explores topics like humanism and environmentalism, especially when they
come into a conflict of interest with each other. He includes the myths of the
people who are living in Sundarbans to explain the nature of living in a
country whose shape is determined by tide and weather. For instance, the myth
behind the so called god of the people living in this area, Bon Bibi. The style that is employed by the author is
apt and suitable for the story that is being conveyed through the novel and
therefore it attracts the attention of readers to it and also prevents them
from deviating from the act of reading this novel. Another aspect which I found
interesting in the novel is the portrayal of the love that germinated between
Fokir and Piya. Their love clearly brings forth the truth and purity of love-
love that is unconditional and the love that does not expect anything in
return. Their love, even though they never confess about it to each other, is
something that will be always remembered by people who have read the novel.
The novel seems to accomplish all that it
meant to accomplish. The novel appears to be perfect in all its aspects and we
the readers are left touched and moved by the stories of Piya, Fokir, Kanai,
Sunderbans etc. In short, Amitav Ghosh’s The
Hungry Tide is a much satisfying read that leaves a lovely aftertaste of
knowing that one has truly cherished reading.
Anu
M Varghese
