The Hungry Tide

I wish I could give this book 3.5 stars, it would have been ideal.

Ghosh paints a mesmerising picture of the Sunderbans, a part of the country that you don't hear or read about all that often. He doesn't sugar-coat things much, hence you see it in its true light; the description of natural beauty, along with the perils and dangers. My only issue was that he sometimes overdoes the whole ''tide country'' bit, and it sometimes felt a bit forced.

The book is definitely well-written, with interesting characters, and some pretty splendid imagery, and asks some really thought-provoking questions. Where does one draw the line between conservation and development? At what point do we prioritise about the condition that people are living in over nature. Aren't the people part of nature too, and doesn't survival of the people take precedence? The book presents a quite balanced view, with arguments from either side that make you think, and realise that the answer isn't as easy and obvious as one may think.

The characters could have been a bit more fleshed out, and the book needed a few more of them to be more coherent. There were times when things seemed to happen and some situations seemed convenient in the interest of story-telling.

Overall, a good read.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES



If you are curious about what climate change is provoking in Bangladesh and East India, you should read this novel although, of course, the story is not only about that.

Ghosh also writes about corruption, love, science, traditional beliefs, poverty, the clash between at least two different ways of thinking and seeing the world.

All this while delivering great psychological potraits.

The Hungry Tide, Amitav Ghosh
As always with Amitav Ghosh, his narrative technique refuses to follow a linear pattern, instead it criss-crosses across events of varying decades to foreground the concept of home and homelessness in The Hungry Tide. Probing into the politically charged massacre of Bangladeshi refugees in Marichjhapi, Ghosh investigates homelessness as a naturalized event that gripped South Asia during the years of 1940s and 1970s. He problematizes homeless all the more as he strikingly brings to notice the caste question that was intrinsically laced with the killings of Marichjhapi and forced eviction of the settlers. On the backdrop of Marichjhapi, Ghosh presents to us the intriguing characters of Nirmal and Nilima; both settled in Lusibari, an island bordering Marichjhapi. Once residents of Kolkata, Nirmal and Nilima settle at Lusibari which they call home. Nilima’s last words in the novel are a direct reference to her definition of home—home is where she can “brew a pot of good tea”. Once understands Nilima can make herself a home wherever she decides to stay. Her project of the hospital along with the charity work at Lusibari enforces this observation. She nurtures rebuilding Lusibari as a mother cares for her child. She stands in opposition to Nirmal, a gentleman revolutionary and a poet, who homelessness acts as a sort of enlightenment. As a revolutionary should, Nirmal is one with the world and his definition of home is attached to the causes with which he identifies himself. Marichjhapi is not Nirmal’s home; the struggle of the residents of Marichjhapi and their resistance in the face of Statist oppression is Nirmal’s idea of home. Home is where he can reconcile with his thoughts. The next set of characters—Kanai and Piya—point to the discourse of home and homelessness as well. Kanai lives in a translated world, away from the cosy, amicable ambience of home. His journey back to Lusibari or, if we call it his home, forces him to occupy a problematic space. He problem is highlighted as he verbally abuses Fakir in one of the journeys that he undertakes with him. Though Kanai is a man of the world, his failure to grasp the changing trajectory of his home renders him homeless which disturbs his sense and sensibility. Piya, who had no knowledge of the local language, interestingly calls Lusibari her home at the end of the novel. A cetologist who comes to Sunderbans to gather knowledge about Oracella dolphins, Piya feels at home despite her predicaments. The nuanced definition of home and homelessness overlaps each other to create, as it were, a space which is explicated by Fakir’s characterization. Fakir belongs to the waters and not to the land. He is aware of the waters of Sunderbans like no one else. His wife, Moyna, believes the river-islands to be her boundaries that she needs to shatter to help her dreams of a decent livelihood take wings. Water makes her as uncomfortable as land unmakes Fakir. But both are in married to each other. Perhaps, only at the end of the novel, when Fakir dies we understand that their relationship was not really devoid of love. Fakir articulates her name as he meets his destined end. Moyna loses her composure, that is one of her most powerful traits, breaking down to irrepressible sobs as she understands her loss.
tIn a way, home and homelessness have very nuanced and problemtic definitions. One can be at home but not be at ease! If one is not at ease, one cannot possibly call it home. At the same time, one can be far away from one’s home, but stays comfortable. Ghosh identifies his novel with these changing notions of home and homelessness to create a narrative that stands dazzling.

This book was written well before Sea of Poppies. It was a fairly interesting story set in an area of Eastern India in a "labyrinth of tiny islands known as the Sundarbans, where settlers live in fear of drowning tides and man-eating tigers."

It was almost more of a documentary giving interesting facts about the history of the settlers, how the government fought them using this ground, how they eked out a living there and were sometimes eaten by Tigers. Dang tigers!

The story of the American Marine biologist from Seattle there to study two rare species of Dolphins, and her relationship with two local fellows, a fisherman and a translator was a bit too tame for me. No real meat in the story.

But it was interesting and I could see Ghosh starting to develop some of the skills that lead him to write the amazing Sea of Poppies trilogy.

Piya, an American of Bengali descent, is a young marine biologist. She travels to the Sundarbans, a mangrove-forested archipelago off the southeastern coast of India, in search of an endangered dolphin species. On the way, she meets Kanai, a translator and businessman from New Delhi. He is on his way to his aunt’s house to collect a journal bequeathed to him by his uncle.

Piya embarks on her study of dolphins but encounters difficulties with her guides. She meets Fokir, an uneducated local fisherman, skilled at reading the tides, with whom she feels a connection. She hires him to help her map the dolphins’ migrations among the islands, where Bengal tigers, crocodiles, snakes, and other wildlife reside. These islands are flooded by the tide twice daily. In the meantime, Kanai reads his uncle’s journal. He reunites with Piya in the role of translator.

Chapters from the journal are inserted periodically into the narrative. From the journal, we learn the story of the violent confrontations in Morichjhampi – a real incident that occurred in 1979 involving government forces and Bengali refugees. The journal also includes the story of Bon Bibi, the protectress of the island people.
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This novel is infused with variety – cetology, the ecosystem in the Sundarbans, politics of the region, powerful storms, and local folklore. It is also a moving interpersonal story of people from extremely different backgrounds. It is beautifully written. It emphasizes the interdependence of humans and nature and highlights difficult questions that arise when they come into conflict. It is a story about adventure, identity, history, environment, and attraction set in a unique region. I found it fascinating.

“Powerful as it already was, the gale had been picking up strength all along. At a certain point its noise had reached such a volume that its very quality had undergone a change. It sounded no longer like the wind but like some other element—the usual blowing, sighing and rustling had turned into a deep, earsplitting rumble, as if the earth itself had begun to move. The air was now filled with what seemed to be a fog of flying debris—leaves, twigs, branches, dust and water. This dense concentration of flying objects further reduced the visibility in what was already a gathering darkness.”

Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide is an ode to the Tide Country. The prose does not unfold a story - but exists much like the background music for a scene out of a painting.

Based on a few real incidents, actual research and experiences - the book has 3 different themes. One that gives you the feel of watching a discovery channel documentary, one of reading a poet's muse and the other the tides of human emotions transcending language, faith and nature. And surprisingly in all 3 themes Ghosh prevails!

The tide country created by the author has a life of it's own. The Characters with layers are believable and more human for fiction.

There are a few loose ends and some parts that seem out of place - but then they get washed away by the tide. Not a very easy read, but then worth it.

A fascinating and gripping read given an insight into a subaltern history. In particular, I enjoyed the exploration of language and who is given the ability to write history. However, there were slightly cringeworthy elements tacked onto the end of each chapter, especially the final lines of the novel. This cheapened the novel slightly and seemed a bit out of place.

One of Amitav Ghosh's best books, I would say. The setting of the book is in the 'Sundarbans' in Eastern India– a vast forest in the coastal region of the Bay of Bengal and considered one of the natural wonders of the world. There is not much of a story as such in the novel, but there are excellent characters and visual depictions of the Sundarbans. The landscape plays a prominent role in the book. One could almost breathe 'Sundarbans'. However, unlike forests in Himalayan ranges in the North, 'Sunderbans' display a certain kind of calm and beauty, but also leave a trail of heavy suffocation especially during the monsoon; they are dark, humid, uninviting and there is always a sense of danger lurking in the air.

On the more brighter note, I loved reading about the landscape shown in the book, it is like I am knowing deeply a character, with its varied shades, in the novel. The fact that such a region exists– with its flora and fauna– is delightful. The immense density of these forests, the presence of white tigers (the Bengal tiger) make this place, among other things, precious.

The other thing I liked about the book is the character portrayal of Fokir, a fisherman, a native of the place– he acts like a guide to Piya Roy, an Indo-American biologist who comes to Sundarbans to study the rare varieties of river dolphins in the region. Fokir's character is wonderfully written; he has the same qualities and a certain uniqueness about him which are similar to the landscape that sustains and nurtures him. Fokir knows the region the way a lover knows the body of his beloved– deeply, intimately and with an acute sense of love, concern, and ownership. He has rivers in him, the swish of a running stream, the virility of fertile landscape, and the agility of a wildcat. His body is as smooth and supple as that for a fish, the sheer force of these sensual descriptions of Fokir can easily be assigned to the landscape, at least to certain aspects of it.

Ghosh's background in history probably persuaded him to write about Sundarbans– these primordial virgin regions carrying within them treasures, but the current infatuations with (thoughtless) development is playing havoc in the area. So the human presence, apart from Fokir's, is largely intrusive and destructive. It unfolds in regional politics and, in complicated ways, is shaped by the global capital.

The hungry tide (the Sundarbans) is hungry because it is one of its kind; it is ferocious because it is just nature at its best– wholly unmediated by any external presence. On the other hand, the hungry tide is hungry in the sense of 'deficient' due to the aggressive and ever-increasing human interventions in the region. It is probably this that makes Ghosh write this book.

And he wrote it brilliantly.