Page 35 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

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

(ii) Who asks Tha’mma for her chain ............... . Notes
(a) May (b) Tridib
(c) Nick (d) The Narrator
(iii) ............... is obstinate and impulsive.
(a) Tha’mma (b) May
(c) The Narrator (d) None of these
(iv) The mighty empire was challenged with an outbreak of the revolt of ............... .
(a) 1856 (b) 1857
(c) 1847 (d) None of these

2.3 Summary

• The Shadow Lines is a stunning novel—amusing, sad, wise and international in scope. It
chronicles the story of two families, one in Calcutta the other in London from the outbreak
of World War II to modern times.
• The Shadow Lines among other things deals with the Narrator’s growth from a tiny world,
reverent of his menotor to a matured and grown up man of the same age as Tridib and in
London too. So great is the influence of Tridib that he warily or unwarily copies him and toes
his line. He does his Ph.D. on the textile trade between India and England in 19th century as
Tridib did on Sena dynasty of Bengal. Their field remains the same viz. history.
• The Shadow Lines hosts a number of themes. The first and foremost being that it is an
attempt to draw the attention of the world to do away with borders that divide the people.
Humanity after all is the same everywhere and any attempt to create differences is not only
hazardous but also futile. There is nothing on earth that can divide a memory. Many lines
and borders may be drawn but it can never set people free of their reminiscences, free of
their associations, free of the love and a sense of belonging for their place of birth. The
second thing it considers is how many of these lines can be drawn or divisions made. It is all
a mirage. The world cannot be divided into innumerable small stages to satisfy the urge of
the people to give their frantic sense of nationalism a political entity and a name. In Indian
context, first it was the creation of Pakistan then the demand arose for Punjab, the North East
and then Kashmir. Partition or secession is no solution. It may on the other hand trigger
never ending hostilities and violence. There can be no better example than India.
• 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.
• 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.
• The Shadow Lines besides dealing with some serious themes is also a picturesque ovel. It
deals with crowded, shaby and traffic-torn Calcutta with road side vendors and petty

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 29