what was his last wish to amitav ghosh
Answers
“I had a strong presence of her. Especially of the eyes. That’s how it started."
He pauses.
“I would have to draw her."
Eventually he gives in.
“In my vision of her, she had a rounded face, she’s young but looks older than she is, she has these startling eyes, she just has this powerful presence."
His tone isn’t romantic. It is factual and thorough—as though he were describing someone he sees every day. Someone who is always there but you never really know till they are gone.
I meet Amitav Ghosh over Skype, he in New York, US, I in Kolkata. The Kolkata-born author of eight novels, the last three making up the Ibis trilogy, is talking about Deeti, the protagonist of Sea Of Poppies, the first of the trilogy shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008.
So how does a vision of a person lead one to write a vast book on opium war that spans over 1,500 pages?
“I knew she was going to leave. I knew this was a book of departures. And I began to think how a departure for her would be possible."
Deeti, a widow who escapes with her lover on a ship set for China, led Ghosh to Mauritius, digging through the archives for information on indentured migration. What emerged was the first of his hugely ambitious Ibis trilogy and what would become an epic 10-year project.
Sea Of Poppies, set in 1838, is the story of Ibis, a former slave ship that is used by the East India Company to smuggle opium, grown forcefully by the British on their Indian plantations, into China. The second of the trilogy, A River Of Smoke, published in 2011, was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. It continues the ship’s voyage to Canton, southern China, where the Chinese retaliate by blockading the British import.
The third and final book of the series, Flood Of Fire, takes the story up to the First Opium War, when the British send a naval expedition to force China’s hand. The novel released in India this week