Page 31 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Unit 2: Amitav Ghosh; Shadow Lines: Detailed Study of Part—I (A Bird’s Eye View)

Tridib is another character that projects the theme of universal brotherhood and amity. His ideal Notes
story is about a time when Europe was a better place, a place without borders and countries—, a
man without a country who fell in love with a woman across the seas. In his powerful imagination
there exist lots of countries and people but no frontiers.
The narrator believes in the reality of space, that the distance separates but is sadly mistaken. He
felt that the two pieces of land would slip away from each other like the tectonic plates of
Gondwanaland but is amazed to find that there had never been a movement in the four-thousand-
year-old history of that map when the places they knew as Dhaka and Calcutta were more closely
bound to each other than after they had drawn their lines—so closely that he (narrator) in Calcutta
had only to look into the mirror to be in Dhaka; a moment when each city was the inverted image
of the other locked into an irreversible symmetry of the line that was to set them free-their looking
glass borders. These border that are drawn are mere shadow lines according to the author, which
often play a role opposite to what they are actually meant to. They reflect not the differences but
the similarities and interdependence.
There are a good number of instances, which show a good fusion of language, culture and countries
to bring home the point that the earth after all is like one country. But at the same time The
Shadow Lines is also a warning for the cultureless identity. Ila is a burning example.
The views have also been expressed on the concept of nationalism that is gaining ground in
today’s world. The author has held the extreme form of nationalism responsible for many a
problem these days. The separalist and secessionist tendencies are the outcome of it. Love of
country, passion inspired nationalism and intoxication of patriotism cannot but lead to jingoism.
The novel ignores the existence of nationalism. Tha’mma is ridiculed as ‘a still surviving specimen
of fossilized nationalism’.
Time and distance are taken to be shadows. The novel makes a smooth transition from present to
the past and from past to the future without causing any friction. The novel highlights the reality
of the frictions people create around their lives.
Amongst other things, The Shadow Lines is a fine blend of amusement, wisdom, pathos and
sentimentality. Despite being Indian in origin it is international in scope. The novel is not written
sequentlially and it is one of its chief features. It keeps moving back and forth and happens at
many places at one and the same time. Time and distance are the challenges to be overcome in the
novel.
The Shadow Lines also talks about the havoc and the terror created by the riots. Despite the orgy
of voicence, bloodshed and merciless killing, they have a transient existence. They are washed out
from the public memory before long. The narrator is at a loss to know that his friend, Malik at
Delhi does not remember anything about the riots that took place in Calcutta and Dhaka almost
the same time in which many where killed including his role model Tridib and neither do the
newspaper carry and significant report on it or attach much importance.
Characters in the novel intermingle not as members of a distinct culture but as complex individuals
in a world where geographic boundaries have truly becomes the shadow lines. These boundaries
are like a mirror that seem to reflect not their differences but their similarities. May Price falls in
love with Tridib and Nick marries Ila? The Prices are in good relationship with Dutta Choudary’s
family and this friendship spans over three generations. The British and the Indians remained
locked for three hundred years in ‘ruler and the ruled’ relationship. The cultural differences do
exist but it is not that people cannot live in harmony.
Removal of the boundaries or the borders so that the earth becomes but one country and mankind
its citizen or to talk in more practical terms, formation of a world Government or at least peaceful
co-existence without losing the cultural identity seems to be the message of the novel.
The Shadow Lines sparks off a debate between tradition and modernity. Good fences make good
neigbhours and limitations or fences are the touchstone of sanity is put under a test. The characters
by whom the two concepts are conveyed are strong ones. Both are the radical women. One is
rooted in tradition the other in modernity. On one hand we Tha’mma, a radical, and nationalist
rooted in tradition but despised and mugged at invariably for nurturing primitive or supposedly

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