Outstanding!

Such a brilliant book, remarkable storytelling, plot and wing. After a long time, this is one book that I had trouble putting down.
Even after having read the book, am in deep at - at the story, the author, people of the tide country, the tiger and the dolphins.

Set amidst the lush foliage of mangrove forests, The Hungry Tide tells us about the history and lives of people who inhabit the numerous islands of Sunderbans in the Bay of Bengal, the river dolphins, the man eater tigers of the tide country, the sea and the legends that float in these waters and forests. It reminds us of the fragility of human life and the helplessness that comes with it.

tStory revolves around American born Bengali descent, Piyali Roy a.ka. Piya, a cetologist who comes to India to study the river dolphins; Foker a reticent illiterate boatman with impeccable knowledge of the tide country; Kanai the middle aged translator who thinks of himself as an urban Casanova;Nilima or Maashima Kanai’s aunt, a matriarch with a keen eye for business who single handedly set up a hospital in the fictious island of Lusibari and runs it successfully; and Nirmal ,Kanai’s late uncle with flawless Communist idealogies.

tGhosh spins a tale whose fabric is dyed with realities of the lives of the islanders, yellowed by the passage of time and embroidered by the tales of Bon Bibi and Shah Jongli.He relates to us the massacre of Morichjhanpi, which otherwise is a much suppressed black episode of Indian history, through the diary of Nirmal.The lives of the then dwellers of Morichjhanpi,the event that lead to the massacre and the struggle of the dwellers as they fight for their right-the right to stay alive are vividly

Ghosh boldly questions the atrocities dealt out on the poor in the name of protecting nature. One of the character voices out,

“Saar,” she said, wiping her face, “the worst part was not the hunger or the thirst. It was to sit here, helpless, and listen to the policemen making their announcements, hearing them say that our lives, our existence, were worth less than dirt or dust. ‘This island has to be saved for its trees, it has to be saved for its animals, it is a part of a reserve forest, it belongs to a project to save tigers, which is paid for by people from all around the world.’ Every day, sitting here with hunger gnawing at our bellies, we would listen to these words over and over again. Who are these people, I wondered, who love animals so much that they are willing to kill us for them? Do they know what is being done in their name? Where do they live, these people? Do they have children, do they have mothers, fathers? As I thought of these things, it seemed to me that this whole world had become a place of animals, and our fault, our crime, was that we were just human beings, trying to live as human beings always have, from the water and the soil. No one could think this a crime unless they have forgotten that this is how humans have always lived — by fishing, by clearing land and by planting the soil.”
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When the books end, in most cases, the characters end with it. But with “The Hungry Tide”, the characters linger around the corners of your heart posing profound questions on human rights, our role as protectors of nature and the inherent frailty of human nature.

This was a beautifully written book consisting of two intertwined narratives. It's set in an area of India I knew little of. I loved that it had bits of history, zoology, poetry and Indian folklore all mixed in. I would definitely read another book by this author.

Disappointing. Confusing attempt to retrace the history of a genocide in the swampy regions of an area of India.

I am glad such a book exists. With its vastly ambitious vision and terrain that allows a comfortable intermingling of ecofiction linked to the relationship between beliefs and agency (an impressive literary act of resurrecting and reclaiming the Bon Bibi and Shah Jongoli legends), Rilke (in Bengali), human-wildlife conflict, state and statelessness, migration in the moodiest of tide countryscapes, and written with an appreciable level of self-awareness about how our privileges translate into consequences for others. I only wish that some of the relationships explored throughout the book were given some more attention, as they do surprise you (as was intended, perhaps), but you don't feel sufficiently invested in them to feel for the transformation of those relationships.

One of the best books I’ve read for a class

" To me, a townsman the tide country's jungle was an emptiness, a place where time stood still. I saw now that this was an illusion, that exactly the opposite was true. What was happening here, I realized, was that the wheel of time was spinning too fast to be seen. In other places it took decades, even centuries, for a river to change course; it took an epoch for an island to appear. But here, in the tide country, transformation is the rule of life. Rivers stray from week to week, and islands are made and unmade in days. In other places forests take centuries, even millennia to regenerate, but mangroves can recolonize a denuded island in ten to fifteen years. Could it be that the very rhythms of the earth were quickened here so that they unfolded at an accelerated pace ? "

Nirmal.

I can't lie, it started messy. The rotating perspective gave me whiplash. There's so much lore and cultural background you need to know in order to follow along, and the author throws you headfirst into it. I found it focusing strongly on sections that I didn't particularly care about. But around halfway through the book, things changed. Maybe it's when the narrative rejoined, but it all just fell into place- a beautiful exploration of human will and endurance. It's not just a portrait of one of the most overlooked regions of the world, but it's a portrait- an ode- to the human spirit. Absolutely brilliant. The beginning was difficult, but it was so incredibly worth it by the end. Through the dense backstories and the trivial conflicts there is a thread that leads to a gorgeous story so richly full of love that it leaves your body glowing.

A very Indian, to my reckoning, book. It irresistibly flows towards merging, synthesis, reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable. It's suffused with compassion towards two causes that happen to clash - human life, rights, and dignity; and conservation of natural habitats. And it doesn't pronounce judgements.

Fittingly, the main character is a translator (represent!!) - a mover between two worlds, bringing the absolutely alien together. Translation is the main undercurrent of the novel - from English to Bangla, from West to East, from city to tide country, from poetry to pragmatism. Everything seems to be understood and reconciled in the end, even the love triangle. It sounds a bit naive but it works for this book. And the writing style is wonderfully poetic and gentle, without coming even close to purple prose - restrained yet moving.

Took me a while to complete this book mostly because of the fact that I had to read this as slowly as possible to absorb the natural environment described in this book that is the Sunderbans. Despite the fact that the places where the story is actually set around are all fictional, the way the author describes them makes me want to pack my bags and jump on the next train to go there.
The novel is actually two stories: it's a story about a man who one fine day goes to visit his aunt after the death of her husband and reads the story about his uncle's life through his journals. How this trip will affect him and those around him is the main premise here.
The two stories earlier mentioned are inextricably woven together is such a way that I did not feel that I was reading two different stories. Kudos to the author.
In conclusion I would recommend this book to those who are looking for an escape from the concrete jungles they live in and read their way into the wilderness in the eastern coast of India.

4.5 stars actually.
Pretty brilliant. After a long time, I've found myself engrossed in the world of the story, wanting to know more and turning the pages ferociously until 4.34 in the morning. Stands in stark contrast to Midnight's Children, which was as labored as The Hungry Tide was effortless to read (took me barely over a day). Reminded me of Arundhati Roy, however I rate Roy's prose as more poetic (hence the 4.5 and not 5).
Will definitely be reading more of Ghosh, and soon.