Flood of Fire: Impressions

This morning I finished reading the third of Amitav Ghosh's Ibis trilogy, Flood of Fire. Although it didn't tire me, my first response would be to say that the book disappointed. Of course, this response may not be echoed by all: being a regular and eager reader of Ghosh's works, I have come to expect a few things in his writing which in my opinion are characteristic of him at his best. It is perhaps in having missed these for the most part of the narrative that my first impulse was to say the book disappointed. As in a way the whole of the trilogy does, in spite of its many marvelous achievements.

But let me leave that bit for a little later. The most appreciable and outstanding part of this mammoth project -- for that is what the Ibis trilogy is more than anything else, -- is its deep, detailed and palpable critique of the peculiar kind of hungry, zealous but utterly composed and self-assured tyranny that came to be embodied by British colonialism. Of course it is widely acknowledged now that this domination of a staggeringly large part of the world by one nation was a remarkable collusion of capitalist greed, racial superiority and military strength boosted by scientific advancement, and one which was often articulated in terms of a religious fervor. We have all read our Edward Saids and the numerous theorists after who have peeled off the many layers of this grand phenomenon. But Ghosh's story brings it all out in visceral human detail, and that of course has been the great strength of his fictional engagement with history, something I have followed with admiration over the last couple of decades. In fact, one could even say that there has been a steady progression and deepening of Ghosh’s historical insight as his canvas has broadened from The Shadow Lines of personally familiar places and occurrences to the Ibis trilogy, whose task is ambitious to say the least.

The parodic and slightly mythical facet of the narrative seems to me an interesting modification of the hyperbolic style that is recurrent in Ghosh. But I didn't quite take to those instances in the trilogy where this is most pronounced. I prefer the Nirmal version of it, infused with poetry, a raw lyrical quality and dreamy idealism. But here it is more cinematic, with visions and shrines, lores and sudden dramatic escapes. It has an important role to play in the narrative and the import (or rather the impact) of the novels, no doubt, but this wasn't among what I could enjoy in reading them. Of course, this is in part my own preference for an old fashioned realism from which I seem to permit only certain kinds of deviation.

Coming to Flood of Fire in particular, I thought that the first half of the book was a bit of a drag. Zachary's escapades with Mrs. Burnham and the page after page of discourse on 'onanism' researched a bit too painstakingly almost made me wonder if some of it was just meant to add pages of titillation to the tome. The descriptions of warfare in the second half are similarly long-drawn and although to someone interested in details of combat these may seem particularly striking, there seems to be a tendency to lapse into minute findings of research here. (My own inability to reconstruct a vivid mental picture of the terrain described added to my distress in reading these pages.) Of course the full horror of the war in all its mundane everyday ugliness had to be brought out and Ghosh does a good job of it, but fiction writing is stretched in the process into mind-boggling lengths of detail. 

As for the 'story', that disappointed me too. It was all a bit too simplistic. Zachary' story of steady fall from innocence, visualized in Baboo Nobo Kissan’s scheme of things as the Kaliyug, becomes sinister capitalist domination represented as tame allegory (in fact the joining of hands between Burnham, Reid and Chan reminded me of the ending of Animal Farm). Mrs. Burnham and Captain Mee are conveniently disposed of in a manner that certainly doesn’t evoke pathos as Bahram’s death does at the end of River of Smoke. By this point in the novel, I was just impatient to be done with the wrapping up that was happening with a rapidity that contrasts awkwardly with the dull pace of the first half. (The ships tips over, so to speak.) I was left with a sense of an epic that had suddenly shrunk.

It is the character of Neel that surprised me. Each of Ghosh’s novels has this intellectual observer-chronicler who becomes the author’s alter ego in the narrative. I am curious to see how this character develops in his future work.

Spotlight: Uma Shashikant

I have never written on this blog about people I admire. Admire long-distance, that is. Mostly through their work or their writing, often both. I have resolved to write such 'spotlight' features every once in a while. Today I will write on one such person and the organisation that she leads, which is distinguished by a rare combination of exceptional clarity of purpose and method, efficient working and a market awareness that does not extend to falling prey to the temptations of expansion to the unfortunate detriment of quality.

I have been reading The Economic Times' weekly supplement, 'Wealth', for almost a year. There is no doubt that it has both increased my confidence in dealing with money and sparked off a lot of interest in the complex, dynamic system that we call the financial market. The space I await most eagerly in the paper is Uma Shashikant's unfailingly sensible and astoundingly lucid column. This author is not just extremely reader-friendly and incredibly adept at phrasing in the simplest, most comprehensible terms every piece of financial knowledge she imparts, but is also sensitive to the investor as a human being. Which is why she seems to have this knack of putting her finger on what is financially crucial as well as personally significant for her readers in making the right decisions. Come to think of it, investments are all about our desires, our well-being and our emotions. In fact, a strain that runs through every article of Shashikant's is her tactful advice to be judicious with our emotions while making financial decisions -- something that will, eventually, only bring us health and happiness.

Uma Shashikant is the Managing Director of the Centre for Investor Education and Learning (CIEL), an organisation which, as I learnt only today, is based in Mumbai but functions largely on cloud technology with the team working from home. Again, most admirable because it is so sensible! The internet is full of praise for Shashikant as an exemplary teacher and trainer. Indeed, I have a good mind to preserve her articles for use in my language classroom as fine examples of lucid articulation.

There are two more points that have enhanced my admiration for CIEL. First, the organisation is almost an all-woman venture, with a team of exceptionally well-qualified and experienced women from the fields of finance, law, information technology and design. (Here is their page.) That makes me very proud as a woman and very hopeful about women building better lives for themselves and the society at large. And the second point is the organisation's clarity about its own goals. As Shashikant puts it unambiguously in this interview, they do not deal with end customers and are essentially a small organisation modelled on providing intensive service rather than taking on too many projects. It is obvious that they have identified a strong market need and have placed themselves neatly as service-providers, but are not out to capture more and more space. And that is a very rare choice indeed in a world where quality is quickly compromised in favour of unrestrained expansion.

Hats off to Uma Shashikant and her team. I am sure I shall keep enjoying and benefiting from her column for a long time! For a sample of her writing, do look here.

The Will to Die

I just googled "suicide". At the top of the page was a helpline number that simply said "Need help? In India, call XXXXXX". A desperate hand from cyberspace attempting to stop the desperate reader somewhere, somehow. Of course, the democratic search engine also lends an equally helping hand even before you finish typing the word, offering "suicide methods" as one of your search possibilities.

Wikipedia affirms that opinions on suicides are numerous and that these are influenced by "broad existential themes such as religion, honor, and the meaning of life." A blog attempting to stop the faceless googler from that one irreversible, horrifying step tells them with assurance that the decision is an impulse formed at a moment when the experience of pain exceeds the means available to cope with it. A view that most rational individuals and most mental health professionals would probably concur with.

"I can't go on, I can't bear it anymore" seems to be the most obvious reason for anyone to direct fatal violence against themselves. Almost everyone of us has felt such despair at some point or the other in life. But we pull on -- either because the actual act of violence thankfully takes much more effort and courage than the thought itself, however strong, or because we think of the numerous responsibilities and the bonds that keep us stringed to life even if it is killing in there. Or, like Viktor Frankl suggests, some of us still hold a strong conviction that our life has meaning, for there is a "will to meaning" in certain individuals, more powerful than pain and despair.

Inherent in the whole idea of "will" is the human capacity for, well, obstinacy. An obstinacy to the point of obsession. So we may be obsessed with power or with wealth and that at times is sufficient to drive us through life, even if it may blind us to everything else. Like possessed creatures we go about in pursuit of that which grips our minds. There is obsessive love too, of course. It seems that the obsession to live for some such thing we have convinced ourselves about is one of the only two reasons why most of us don't actually pick up that blade. (Of course, as I said above, after the picking up of the blade, there is a further deterrent in the fear factor.)

The other reason, I would say, is the ability to be securely thick-skinned and thus to carefully stay just within that dangerous line that separates commonplace existence from a tiny but cataclysmic step into disturbance and possible unhinging. We manage to stay put on the needle point, getting inured to its prick over time, knowing that a slip would mean a plunge into that unknown abyss which we are sure is unspeakably worse than this pinned existence. Here are the closing lines of an A.K. Ramanujan poem that captures this common feat in a dry tone that is particularly hard on religious nerves: At the bottom, of all this bottomless/ Enterprise to keep simple the heart’s given beat,/ The only risk is heartlessness. ('The Hindoo: The Only Risk')

But returning to my first point about obstinacy -- and here is my clinching couplet --, eminently capable as we are of being obstinate in creating meaning with our lives, not all of us might exactly be "giving up" in choosing to die. To those who will have either all or none, to those who will fight to their last breath to keep a relationship alive or to see their goals met, suicide might not be the result of mere despair that pushes them overboard. I have a slight objection to the general perception of suicide as an act of crumbling under pressure, a surrender to the might of pain. Obstinate creatures that we are, we also harbour within us an indomitable will to die. Our very stubbornness may prefer dying to a giving in that implies a giving up of what we lived for or believed in. Is such suicide mental illness? If so, this illness is the very quality we admire in the extraordinary -- the quality of grit and never-say-die -- that also manifests itself as a will to die.

A most dangerous habit

So, what do you have to say about those who read books? Those who, that is, love reading them, are always found with them and have gathered a reputation as 'voracious readers'?

There is the regretful voice of teachers and mothers who think that internet and sms have brought doom and gloom to the future of their children who simply don't want to pick up a book. You hear conservationists campaigning for keeping the reading habit alive. If you listen to this group, you must think that reading must be a blessed preoccupation indeed. And we have read those numerous poems from Englishmen encased in nobility who have sung to the glory of books.

But think of witty women, headstrong women, women with opinions like Lizzy Bennett. Women who think, who dare to knock at the doors of universities like Virginia Woolf. Women who like to read about women like them, women who read and agree with the opinions of women and men like them -- no, I am not talking about the 'feminists' alone, though they may certainly be part of this group.

To be found with a book suddenly becomes the opposite of cooking, wiving (no, that's not the right word, is? It should be 'husbanding' -- now 'husbanding' has a pretty domestic air about it), mothering and all those cultivated, feminine things that a woman must do. If she reads in spite of them, some kind of little novel or poetry book as deemed fit for the fairer sex since the eighteenth century, reading is again a good habit, ain't it?

For the most part, however, women would like to keep their intellect and their habits intact, methinks. Women who read, like women who think and women who study and women who assert their rights are dangerous creatures.

So, would you encourage your girl child to read?

The first lesson again

Today, I learnt Swati Tirunal’s oft-heard kriti in Mayamalavagoula, ‘Deva deva kalayaami’. The familiar intonations of the beginner’s raga completed yet another cycle in learning music. “Anda ga-va-attara ashakanam” said my teacher reminding me that the Ga in Mayamalavagowla contained glimpses of three notes. Another of the realisations that form the everyday in learning and relearning music. 

Sa-Ri-Ga-Ma... and so on we are taught in that very Mayamalavagoula  in our very first class on Karnatik music. Then to now is a long way indeed, as is now to the many ‘then’s in future!

Meanwhile, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson here are telling me how reason is not completely conscious but mostly unconscious. That it is shaped by the body, and constrained by it. That we deal with a cognitive unconscious. How we learn in spite of our fundamental unconsciousness of the way we learn has always hugely intrigued me. And even as I try to consciously understand, through speculation and science, through the bizarre language of neurons and through the pleasure of having consciously realised what I have half-known for years, I find myself equally interested in tapping our unconscious learning abilities to enhance our methodologies of education as well as our creative endeavours.

To end this post, I like what Rashmee said the other day on FB: art helps digest. I would like to add, art helps rearrange. As we rearrange, add or brush off a shade, a note, an imperceptible so much here and there, much more than the shade or note, picture or tune, gets rearranged.  And that could be potentially as big as the butterfly's flapping wings.

The tide country, at last!

“The islands are the trailing threads of India’s fabric, the ragged fringe of her sari, the ãchol that follows her, half-wetted by the sea. They number in the thousands, these islands; some are immense and some no larger than sandbars; some have lasted through recorded history while others were washed into being just a year or two ago... The rivers’ channels are spread across the land like a fine mesh-net, creating a terrain where the boundaries between land and water are always mutating, always unpredictable. Some of these channels are mighty waterways, so wide across that one shore is invisible from the other; others are no more than two or three kilometres long and only a few hundred metres across. Yet, each of these channels is a ‘river’ in its own right, each possessed of its own strangely evocative name. When these channels meet, it is often in clusters of four, five or even six: at these confluences, the water stretches to the far edges of the landscape and the forest dwindles into a distant rumour of land, echoing back from the horizon.”

Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide (2004)

This is where it began. For eight long years, since the first time I read these paragraphs, the tide country has been a constant, haunting image in my mind: one of my most desperate dreams, so to speak. When Vidya and I booked a tour package to the Sundarbans via India Beacons Sojourn this September, I consciously stopped imagining, expecting, looking forward. It was too intense, what I held within myself for this place, its creatures and its people. I was only thinking of a week-long holiday in December, so hard-earned for both of us.

Kolkata was a lovely welcome and meeting a dear online friend for the first time was already one wish granted. Shantiniketan, an artist-town, was a perfectly planned holiday complete with many take-aways. And then, before we knew it, we were at Science City, Kolkata on the morning of Friday, 14th of December, waiting for our pick-up to Godhkhali from where we were to be taken to the Sundarbans on a launch. After some initial mix-up with the directions, we joined a group of 8-10 people, pinching ourselves, at the brink of an experience that heaped rewards on my years of waiting.

The launch that greeted us at Godhkhali was called Purbasha. Dipankar Mondol and the other members of our crew (our ever-smiling driver Bhola and our expert cook Lala) took us aboard while the rest of the group that had travelled with us so far was put on another launch. We learnt later that the group that was to come with us had cancelled plans last minute. Surprise was the way Bon Bibi granted us our best holiday to date. The only travellers on our boat for two-and-a-half days, Vidya and I found ourselves negotiating stretches of water surrounded by mangrove forests – exactly as Amitav Ghosh describes the islands.

Purbasha is not just a launch, it is a household, complete with a well-equipped kitchen and comfortable bunk-beds on the lower deck, a neat little cubicle of a washroom and luxury encapsulated in its simple amenities. After a couple of hours – during which time we were served the first of our scrumptious meals on board – we reached the Sajnekhali watch tower. Crocodiles and deer were visible in the distance. The experience of peering through the binoculars, searching the mangrove forests and the waters for sightings, is something I cannot describe here in words, try as I might, though I can still hear the swish of the tides and feel that wind on my skin as I write this.

The Sajnekhali and Sudhanyakhali watch towers are well-maintained posts, the former housing a beautiful museum on the ecology of the Sundarbans, a cluster of islands densely forested with 84 species of mangroves, only a small part (about one-fifth) of which lies in India and the rest in Bangladesh. The rivers that criss-cross this region are now cut off from the Ganga and it is only the Bay of Bengal’s saline water that flows here. Everywhere as we moved on the waters we saw nets on the banks, supposed to stop the famed Sundarban tigers from emerging out of the forests and attacking the populated parts of the tide country. But that, of course, is no guarantee of safety. As our guide of the third day, Sanyasi Mondol, told us, no villager believes the tiger count given by the Forest Department (a recent census revealed the total number to have shrunk alarmingly) and many fishermen risk their lives by rowing into narrow channels with dead ends. A tiger can leap from the bank, grab you while you are on the boat and be gone silently many minutes before your companions realise you are missing. Why, most of the victims would die of a heart attack at the mere sight of the ferocious animal, even before it has got to them! Mondol claimed that in and around his village, some twenty people had been carried away in the past six months. We found the statistics hard to believe, but while we were there, it seemed too likely.

Life is far from easy around these parts. To the visitor, these islands are a beauty past compare, but would the villagers in these harsh regions, given a choice, have lived here? Poor fishermen and honey collectors risk their lives everyday even as the catch/produce they gather is exported all over the world. In parts, women walk for five to six hours on kaccha roads (banks, really) to get from one place to another. Although there are some schools here, the nearest college is in Kolkata. And medical care is almost non-existent beyond some rudimentary first aid. Tourism seems to have brought some hopes to young men, but I must add that the behaviour of the average tourist leaves much to be desired. It was, however, encouraging that Dipankar's brother had become a professor in a college and though he now lived away from his home country, was avidly promoting its economy as well as ecotourism there through the Purbasha Helpline Society.

The first two days were spent on the launch till 4 pm. Deer, monitor lizards, kingfishers in a jubilation of colours, cormorants, bee eaters, pond herons and the like filled our world with the sort of company we long for but seldom have. The thrill that a sighting brings to a traveller in these regions is incomparable to any other joy. While it is, doubtless, a photographer’s paradise, even to have captured the moments with your overjoyed eyes creates a memory of a lifetime.  

No, we did not see a tiger. That one ultimate wish remained unfulfilled though we experienced the thrill -- as well as the chill -- of an imminent glimpse on the third day as we sat on a country boat that took us terrifyingly close to the forested banks where a tiger could have been crouching, ready to spring on us and take its pick from amongst the group. That ride is unforgettable, what with our boatman Sujit Bidda guiding the boat through the high tide with nothing more than a stout bamboo stick, in a display of astounding strength and control. Our company was complete with a little Tutul (here, Rahul) and we were travelling along the banks of Morichjhãpi – I couldn’t have asked for more! That village with a bloody history now lies deserted, a no man's land whose scars remain unhealed.

Forest faces village across about a quarter of a kilometre of water. Our resort stood at the edge of the inhabited island, in the village of Dayapur, and we could have seen a tiger from our balcony if one had chosen to emerge. I could not help remember the episode in the novel where Kusum’s father is killed by a tiger even as villagers watch and hear helplessly from the other bank the sound of his neck bone cracking in the tiger's grip.

After 4 pm on both the days, we were escorted back to the Royal Bengal Resort. The islands have no electricity, but the tourist resorts run on generator were yet another surprise for us. We got to see an enactment of the Bon Bibi legend by a local women’s group on the very first evening. The play was done laudably: the acts, the songs and dialogues (even though they were in Bangla, a language we don't follow, the drama was good enough to keep us riveted), not to mention the costumes, brought this jungle-lore alive before us. 

On the last day, we travelled on the Baba Vishwanath – another, smaller launch – and were taken to see the farmland and settlements in the village of Charkerighar. We walked across an embankment, taking in the destruction wrought by the cyclone Alia, signs of which were everywhere. Alia had flattened the human settlements completely and ripped apart the manmade banks. The ‘farms’ in the tide country are not as one would visualise them in other parts of India. Imagine land floating on water, here rising and there sinking. Water finds its own way into little and big inlets and reminds you in no uncertain terms, lest you forget your school geography, that it is water that dominates the planet and that land is a mere digression.

Vidya has uploaded a few pictures here.

The Horizon Beyond the Arabian Sea

Sand, trees and wind

Awaas curving into the distance

It is a peculiar experience to stand looking out into the sea at the Gateway of India, with the magnificent concrete jungle behind you. Head deeper into the waters in a catamaran and you see in the distance a difference in the colour of the water a few miles away -- a while sheet by a shore lined with coconut palms swaying in the wind. Mumbai and Alibaug stare at each other across the ocean and a regular stream of tourists from the city escapes to the beaches on weekends.

We decided to avoid both the weekend crowd  and the popular, commercialised Alibaug proper. Thanks to Rushikesh for recommending the other beaches along the coast and the suggestion we look for a homestay . The idea appealed to us and after some searches on the internet, we zeroed in on Shree Holiday Resorts at Chondi, near Kihim beach. Owned by Mr. Kaustubh Raut, it is his ancestral property, a pretty courtyard full of coconut trees with his own home and a separate building with neat rooms for guests. The pleasure of living for a couple of days in this simple and clean small town home will remain a fond memory for many years.

The journey by ferry was itself unique. On our way to Mandwa we decided to take the PNP catamaran at 8:10 am. It had been a while since Vidya and I had set out on one of our short trips. Our last one was Matheran back in July and we were eager to enjoy this one to the fullest before a new hectic phase full of work.

The ferry reached Mandwa jetty at about 9:00 am and the connecting bus soon dropped us at Chondi. Shree Homestay is located along the main road to Alibaug which made it very convenient for us to travel to places nearby. Mr. Raut welcomed us with some delicious upma and tea for breakfast. The food we had on the two days -- "very simple food" as our host described it -- was scrumptious Maharashtrian homemade cuisine with usals and daals and sabjis like paneer burji and gavarchi bhaji. Needless to say, we relished every morsel served fresh and hot.

We spent the afternoons on the courtyard playing carrom and having a go at the glorious hammocks and swings. I felt like a child again: the place is just so lovely you cannot stop gurgling all the time.

Vrindavan -- a private park, nursery and plantation just a few feet away from our homestay -- was full of different kinds of plants. Hot as it was, we could just about roam through the grounds before returning home for lunch. But even in the sunny weather, we hungrily took in all the greenery around, the rare plants and the hills in the distance. In a mere couple of hours were in a place starkly different from Mumbai. It was a break in the true sense of the term. I kept imagining how beautiful the landscape would look when the monsoon sets in.

On the first evening we visited Kihim beach which was barely three kilometers away. Most of the auto rickshaws have no meters here, so you have to believe and give what the auto driver asks. However, the distances are quite long, and the small autos are engaged only to places that lie away from the main roads. On the whole, we found that the local people guided us quite well. Obviously, it is much more convenient to get around in your own vehicle, but I personally enjoyed immensely the opportunity to explore travelling in the local buses as well as the six-seater shared autos (which actually seat some 10 people ;) ) and vans plying from Alibaug to Saswane/Rewas, taking and dropping off passengers at various points.

Kihim was rather muddy at low tide, a little littered and more crowded than Awaas which we visited the second evening. But still it is hardly commercialised in comparison with Alibaug. We did head to Alibaug from Kihim (that would have been a good ten kilometers) and here the most exhilarating experience was the horse cart ride at dusk along the curve of the beach and right into the waters as well! We left the dear  animals with a caress, carrying back the thrill of horses' hooves galloping through waves in the falling darkness, the sea fort in silhouette against the horizon.

On the morning of the second day (11th), we set out to trek up to the Kankeshwar temple. Very enthusiastically, we got up early and left by 6 am. But the town was still asleep and we had to wait for nearly 50 minutes to get an auto which dropped us beyond a railway line some distance away from the foot of the hill. By now the summer sun was already shining down upon us and, in spite of my admonishing, refused to go hide behind the hill and let us climb in peace. The climb was not difficult as treks go, but yours truly was a bit tired, what with the heat and the newly acquired rotundity. Vidya was patient as I kept stopping and disbelieving signs that announced the number of steps yet to be conquered. When we began to climb it looked as though the summit would not be very far as it was a small hill. But the peak and temple at the top were hidden from view, so that the climb was actually much longer. Nonetheless, I enjoyed every bit of it, most of all because hardly a soul was in sight. For the two of us, this was the best aspect of the trip.

After a stop at a Maruti temple with a water tank nearby, we reached the main Kankeshwar temple of Lord Shiva. After meeting all the gods, we had breakfast at a small dhaba and headed back, clicking some snaps of the landscape on our way down.

The second evening had more cheer in store for us. Karmarkar Shilpalay, a small building that houses the creations of the sculptor in his own home, was another enjoyable experience. We spent an hour admiring the statues that surprised us with their life-like quality. The cow in the backyard looked so real it could have mooed right there, and the servant who sat by the gate was as convincing as a man in flesh and blood. The caretaker narrated an anecdote of how the statue was once mistaken for a man by visitors in the late evening who complained of his impertinence when he did not respond to their greeting.

Awaas beach was the perfect climax of our holiday. We walked through a lane flanked by some enviably green and dense private property on either side and suddenly emerged into a vast, vast expanse of beach. Not a single juice stall or ice-cream seller was nearby and the beach waters roared magnificently in the hour immediately after high tide. We walked on the beautiful patterns formed by the sand admiring the bend of the water into the beach and the long coast. Mumbai is a white blur of ghostly sky scrapers at a distance from here. I could just not have enough of the salubrious breeze, the colourful shells on the shore and the amazing formations of sand and water. We took in the calm, the space and the air sitting on the rocks and walked about feeling a world of peace about us.

On the morning of the 12th, we clicked a few pictures of our homestay and waited on the main road outside the resort, where the Maldar pick up vehicle arrived on schedule and took us to Mandwa jetty. The Maldar catamaran is spacious and well-kept: the upper deck has fine seating arrangement and a good roof against the sun. The journey back was a bit rough in the beginning due to the direction of the wind, but the feeling of being back on the waters was a thrill once again.


All good things must come to an end and so did this most satisfying and utterly beautiful trip, but like the best things, it brought a fresh lease of life that is sure to tide us over several months and have a place among our dearest memories.