Interview: Chasing the dragon with Amitav Ghosh

In Pic: Amitav Ghosh

In an exclusive interview with Flipkart, Amitav Ghosh talks about his need to write and print on good paper, the inspirations for his diverse range of characters, his interest in the opium trade of the 19th century and his latest in the Ibis Trilogy - ‘River of Smoke’…

Would you say growing up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is part of the explanation for your lush descriptions of settings and your multicultural character driven writing?
The experience of living in many different places has certainly had an impact on the way I look at the world. And you may well be right in attributing it to my interest in cultural differences and exchanges. I also travel a great deal so that I can have a proper sense of the places I’m writing about: Mauritius, China, Singapore etc.

Based on your writings, you have a deep bond with the Far East and its cultural connection with India, where does this interest come from?
It may be because I am from eastern India – countries such as Burma, Cambodia and Indonesia have particularly close connections with Orissa and Bengal.

From Sea of Poppies, where is the reader taken with River of Smoke? Who are the new characters and who will we be reacquainted with?
River of Smoke heads in a new direction: towards southern China – the city of Canton (now known as Guangzhou) in particular. Its principal protagonist is Bahram Modi, the father of Ah Fatt, the half-Chinese convict in Sea of Poppies.

The Ibis Trilogy focuses on the Indian diaspora and the migration of laborers; what fascinated you about this time in India’s history?
Sea of Poppies began as a book of departures. I have myself traveled a great deal but oddly enough I have become more interested in departures than in arrivals. I wanted to understand what it was like for deeply-rooted people from India’s heartland to travel across the seas (which they thought of as the ‘Kalapani’). It took a great deal of courage to undertake such a journey – this is one of the reasons why I am fascinated by the migration of laborers.

What is it about the opium trade of the 19th century that made you decide to base a trilogy of novels around it and why a ship as the central symbol?
Opium played a decisive role in the history of 19th and early 20th century Asia. It was one of the financial pillars of the British Raj and it had catastrophic consequences for Chinese society. No other commodity (except perhaps oil in the 20th century) has had such a decisive impact on history. In terms of the Ibis as a central symbol, I have always been interested in boats and ships – this must have something to do with being from a part of the country where rivers are of prime importance.

Your books are filled with rich, colourful characters, do you find yourself basing them on real people from past and present?
Some of my characters are indeed based upon real people. Neel Haldar (who figures in ‘Sea of Poppies’ as well as ‘River of Smoke’) was based upon a character I came across in the Calcutta judicial records of the 1820s – a rich zamindar who was convicted of forgery and sent into exile.

Do you have any quirky habits when it comes to your writing process?
I do most of my writing by hand and I am quite obsessive about paper, ink, pens and so on. It is very hard to write at length with a fountain pen if it does not have a good nib, so I pay a lot of attention to that. But at a certain stage I do move to the computer, but even then, I like to have good paper (of at least 100 GSM) when I am printing out. For some reason it is often quite difficult to get 100 GSM paper in Goa, so I often have to get it from Mumbai or Kolkata. Friends who come to visit are sometimes astonished to be asked to bring paper.

What advice would you give to budding writers looking to get published?
The most important thing is to write a good book.

What book are you currently reading?
Peter Robb: A Death in Brazil

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River of Smoke (2011)

After a three year wait, master storyteller Amitav Ghosh is back with his second book in the epic Ibis Trilogy, River of Smoke, the sequel to Sea of Poppies. Rooted during the eve of the Opium Wars and following a kaleidescope of characters traveling through trade routes between India and China, Amitav Ghosh’s opus is shaping up to be a historical, cultural and literary marvel.

After taking you on a dramatic voyage through the Ganges and the Indian Ocean in ‘Sea of Poppies’, we now dock in the hustle and bustle of the Chinese port-city Canton in ‘River of Smoke’. Centered around the Parsi opium trader, Bahram Modi, his estranged half-Chinese son, Ah Fatt and the orphan botanist Paulette - the book, much like it’s predecessor, is set around engaging characters in a colonial backdrop, many of whom are trying to make sense of (and profit from) the volatile opium trade.

Settings drenched with lush descriptions of the British Raj seeping into the Orient, a melting-pot of characters driven by romance and riches, and entertaining dialogue thriving on colloquial wordplay - ‘River of Smoke’ is a mesmerizing re-telling of history combined with a captivating plot. It is a rich addition to a thoroughly entertaining trilogy showcasing an everyman outlook on the Opium Wars of the 19th century.

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Buy Amitav Ghosh’s latest novel ‘River of Smoke’ on Flipkart

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