Page 8 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Indian Writings in Literature

Notes commission, he disregards the warnings and sets sail in unfavourable conditions. The journey
progresses very slowly because of a lack of wind, and the ship becomes becalmed in the Gulf of
Siam. Meanwhile all the crew are infected with malaria, and the chief mate appears to be dying.
The mate believes that an evil influence from the previous captain is casting a jinx on the ship.
The young captain then suddenly discovers that the supplies of quinine he has been using to treat
his crew have been stolen and sold by the previous captain, who has re-filled the bottles with
useless stuff. The captain is supported in all his attempts to keep going by the ship’s cook, who has
a bad heart. The chief mate recovers slightly, but the ship makes no progress. The captain in
despair decides to abandon the voyage and return to Singapore. En route the ship encounters a
tropical thunderstorm, and the captain has to maintain the safety of the ship with the help of only
two or three sick crew members. The chief mate goes through a phase of near madness in which
he believes that they are battling against evil forces of the former captain, who he personally
buried at sea in the same part of the Gulf. Finally, the ship reaches Singapore, the crew are taken
off to hospital, and the cook requests to be discharged from his duties. The captain recruits a
replacement crew and is planning to resume his voyage the very next day, feeling older and wiser.

1.2 Characters

• Narrator – The protagonist is a middle class boy who grows up in a middle-class family.
• Tridib – He was the son of Mayadebi, and so by relation he was the second uncle of Narrator.
• Grandmother of Narrator (Tha’mma) – She is the headmistress of girls school in Calcutta.
She is very strict, disciplined, hardworking, mentally strong and patient lady.
• Ila – She is the cousin of narrator. She lives in Stockwell, London. She is very good looking.
• May – She is the daughter of Prices family.
• Nick – He is a good looking blonde having long hair and wants to become a Chartered
Accountant. In the course of the novel he marries Ila.

1.3 Amitav Ghosh’s Works: A Critical Sketch
Amitav Ghosh is one of the better-known Indian Writers writing in English today. Born in 1956 in
Calcutta, he had his school education at the famous residential Doon School in Dehradun. Though
he belonged to a middle class Bengali family, his childhood had varied influences that set him
apart from the typical Bhadralok (middle class) value system. While growing up in his grandfather’s
Kolkata home where the sitting room was lined with bookshelves, (he talks about it in the award
winning essay “The Testimony of my Grandfather’s Bookcase”) Ghosh became a voracious reader.
By the age of 12, he had devoured Mikhail Sholokhov’s And Quiet Flows the Don, a gift from an
uncle. He admits in an interview that in the Bengali culture writing is greatly valued and that was
his inspiration. His father, Lt Col. Shailendra Chandra Ghosh served the British army in Myanmar
and was an avid storyteller. These stories about the exotic lands told to him as a young boy were
to greatly affect the canvas of his imagination He also admits as to how these early family
experiences were to have a far reaching influence on his literary creations. He quotes the example
of The Glass Palace (2000) that grew out of his uncle Jagat Chandra Dutta’s experiences as a timber
merchant in Myanmar. The fact that the family was constantly on the move, owing to his father’s
official assignments, also had its effect on young Amitav. Even though he was in a boarding
school he got to visit and live in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. “Because of that I could understand
what it is like to be a Sri Lankan and a Bangladeshi in relationship with ‘India,” he says. This
sensibility pervades many of his works and one sees that the Indian Subcontinent is frequently
decentered from Delhi to other capitals like Dhaka and Mandalay.
He graduated from Delhi University and with an Inlaks scholarship went to Oxford for his DPhil
in Social Anthropology and Philosophy. During his research he came across the papers of a 12th
century Tunisian Jew, Abraham Ben Yiju, in a Cairo synagogue. He learnt from the papers that he
had come to Mangalore via Egypt and lived there for 17 years. This formed the seminal idea of

2 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY