South Asian Outlook : An Independent e-Monthly

Sea of Poppies

Author: Amitav Ghosh

Reviewed by Latha Sukumar

Publisher: Penguin/Viking, 2008
Number of pages: 515

Latha Sukumar

Sea of Poppies is Amitav Ghosh’s gripping tale of a perilous journey in the high seas. It is also a gut wrenching account of human perversions and heroism. The beauty of the poppy fields that suffuse the countryside with colour belie their potent impact on the fate of humans. No one is spared and no two experiences are similar. We find out that in the 1800s the British colonists replaced food crops in Western India with poppy fields, paid exploitive prices to the rural poor, who farmed or processed them in ghastly factories, and exported them to the opium dens of China.

Several Englishmen became wealthy simultaneously as did the British Empire, until the Chinese authorities woke up to the devastation wreaked on their population by this malaise and issued an ordinance for the enforcement of its strict ban. The ripple effect is devastation of rural livelihoods and desperate peoples' indenture as coolies, to serve the colonists’ interests in other parts of the world. In this instance they and other outcastes including a bankrupt Raja, an opium addict, an abandoned spouse, hazard a most treacherous journey in the high seas to Mauritius on a slave ship, the Ibis, with its rag tag international crew of social misfits. A few perish on the voyage from the heat and confinement of their tight quarters in the underbelly of the ship but there is also cause for celebration with courtship and marriage, the accompanying songs and revelry frustrating the colonists' efforts to quell their spirit.

This is a tale of epic proportions not because of the grandeur with which it recreates another era and captures the social, economic and political mood of that time, but because of its nuanced depiction of the minutia of everyday life, be it in a farmer’s, a local Raja’s or a British Memsaheb’s household. So we are witness to lavish dinner parties, the generous use of Hindi words by the colonists, mostly pejoratives to put in place their army of servants and subordinates, and the varied hue of accents and dialects used by the book's many other colourful characters, the sea-men and a self proclaimed avatar of Lord Krishna. Even though it portrays the brutal oppression of humans under patriarchy and every possible “ism”, it is not a depressing read. It is tragic and funny, brimming with hope under impossible conditions and replete with heroic and subversive acts by ordinary women and men. In some ways good triumphs over evil at least at the end of this first book of a trilogy. Except for the nautical language which is challenging at times, this book is eminently readeable and demonstrates Ghosh’s preeminence as writer and researcher par excellence.

Synopsis

In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. As their old family ties are washed away they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races and generations.

It is this panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, which makes Sea of Poppies so alive - as written by one of the world’s finest novelists.

Latha Sukumar lives in Ontario, Canada. She loves the four seasons and the great outdoors. She blogs, reads and practises yoga and vipassana meditation. In her spare time she is a legal practitioner and CEO of an NGO that facilitates access to the justice system. To be subject to more of her musings you can go to overcoffeewithlatha@blogspot.com