The spelling of the author's first name follows the convention of his roots, where "v" of Roman script is pronounced "bh", in accordance with "w" being pronounced "b" generally; his name ought to be spelt Amitabh for a proper understanding of how to pronounce it, and in fact in his home in Bengal it would be Amitabho since almost every "a" is made into an "o" as a rule in Bengali.
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A collection of the author's writings prior to or in between his prolific authoring of books, these essays or "prose pieces" as advertised on the cover (new worldese rather than English?) reflect his background and the handicaps of his upbringing as clearly as a not too deep pond would show its bottom just as it is reflecting the surroundings.
Ghosh suffers from the not uncommon malady of a brown sahib with his conflicts - on the one hand the deep seated need to win the approval of the colonial masters, the ones that designed, planned and executed the factories for manufacture of the brown sahibs, a nomenclature they gave to the products of the schools set up by colonial rulers to "educate" the ruled into their own image internally, so that the machine of colonial rule would run smooth with the least effort from the rulers thence free to loot; on the other hand an equally deep seated need to rebel against this, but without being accused of siding with one's own people, being not free of one's own background prior to the coats of years and years of brown sahib varnish that went into the making of the products never ever quite finished.
This conflict results then strangely enough into an attitude that goes - one may be born such and such and educated by so and so and living in a rich nation with reaping of the benefits thereof of the lifestyle of a rich democracy along with a possibly local wife and therefore natural half white children (so one doesn't have to worry about their heritage quite as much after all, or for their peers dealing with them with prejudice or worse) - but one is free to have an attitude against all of the above, so one can be called independant at least and fair at best; to achieve this, the Indian Hindu brown sahib repudiates in particular anything remotely of the Hindu Indian multitude thought (calling it baseless sentiment helps), sides with the pre-European colonial rulers (scrupulously refraining from identifying them as colonial rulers), and calls it secular. Since this is approved by the party that came to power with independence of the country that provided his background (which included the status of parent - not only "salaried government employee" but one rather well paid with perks, in diplomatic services to boot), a party that endorses a definition of secularism that goes with faith equated to most outrageous claims of minority religions (but only the sizeable minority, those sponsored in stupendous amounts from outside for the purpose of conversion and other routes to power meanwhile) and putting down of majority ones - votebank politics at its most shoddy form - one can literally see where Ghosh is coming from.
To add to all this there is his life spent in various nations since childhood and well into his formative years including working on his Oxford degree, nations and societies where he was not only made to feel ashamed of his roots but his very existence and life of his family was threatened due to their being of another faith. He therefore perversely goes to "understand" them and taking sides with the least informed, most prejudiced, and so forth, and for example is never able to explain why cremation is not only as good a way as burial to dispose of the bodies when soul has departed but is in fact better, since it allows no desecration by animals or invaders and does not clutter the earth with cemeteries, leaving earth free for life on earth.
Such convoluted mindset explains why he praises someone "born to rule" and without a place to rule, constantly on the run from his own kinship who are equally all born to rule and therefore out to finish off each other to rule the same little place, hating a vast subcontinent when he has managed to acquired it but not leaving it to go attempt to acquire the little town in central Asia he longs for - Ghosh praises the historic document as an unprecedented piece of literature rather than a factual write up of the wars and victories that it was, understood by now as in fact written in all probability by an official court historian rather than the conqueror himself, and manages to miss the bragging about destruction of temples and disposal of the worshiped objects by paving the doorsteps of mosques with them.
He goes on to tow the official line of obfuscation about uncertainty about there having been ever a temple and more. Such uncertainties can be very simply removed with publicly witnessed and documented - photographed, videoed - archaeological digs; that the "site" has instead been locked up with all archaeological work stayed forever ought to make anyone with a shred of brain suspect that the claims about a temple might after all be not only true but known to archaeological authorities and therefore to the government that seeks to claim otherwise; that walls have been recently built behind other similar monuments known to have been built on top of temples destroyed for the purpose, including mausoleums, ought to make anyone with a shred of gray matter suspect it is a shoddy conspiracy to rule the nation by browbeating and guilt imposed on majority.
But Ghosh is not concerned about any of this, he would rather be seen as someone who rebels against his Oxford-route successful education - successful in his acquiring not only an admission but a final degree at Oxford - and is fair to the West Asian downtrodden nations in spite of his life and family residence in the ultimate paradise on earth, US.
If Ghosh did grow up out of his mucho handicapped brown sahib upbringing, it is not clear in his "prose pieces", possibly due to their being not recent; if he is at all likely to grow up, he probably will hide it assiduously, since his present attitude and lack of comprehensive knowledge or thought helps him win accolades in his home country, and refrains from his being branded as a Hindu in the country he has chosen for his life.
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Mrs. Gandhi's Ghosts is a curious piece, worth a read for its first hand account of the day of her death but raising questions about the lack of generally known details of the horrors being far too coordinated to be merely "young hoodlums" roaming around and responsible. Ghosh does mention a direction being given generally and transport being provided free to those killers but refrains from mentioning who might have done it, and does not have a world of repugnance or denounciation, unlike his clear sentiment for destruction of a mosque unused for centuries as a place of worship - except by Hindus who all along believed it was birthplace of a God of theirs.
This silence about perpetrators of horrors of post Mrs. Gandhi's death - just as huge and conspiratorial as the silence about perpetrators of the massacre of several thousand Hindus on and for a couple of days after the "action day" commanded by Jinnah for demand for a country he could rule in name of a faith he disdained to practice at any time in his life, a massacre moreover with knives, indicating not only complicity by the then government of Bengal but participation by hundreds that went unpunished and even unaccused just as the '84 massacres did - this silence and careful refraining from any mention of anyone who might be held guilty even if due to being in a position of responsibility, is indicative of the loyalties and dirty politics of those that clamour for blood of guilty in riots (post burning of a train full of pilgrims alive to death) in the name of secular justice.
Sadly someone of Ghosh's capabilities - anyone having read his novels can suspect he is not quite one of those whose minds were destroyed completely by their education - goes along with this party line, much as the leftists and fellow travellers of leftists went on to justify every atrocity in East Europe and China (and by China in Tibet) but make up for it by clamouring to question India's holding Kashmir as a part. If wishes of the populace were the criterion, what price forcing Baluchistan and Frontier Province against their wishes into the country they did not choose? They had clearly expressed their wish to be part of India, so much so the Viceroy and his retinue had to escape their wrath by fleeing their crowds, afraid for their lives!
For Ghosh, it probably is convenient to not think about any of it, and take the path of least danger for himself so he can continue his privileged life - and that involves officially siding with every claim, however outrageous, made west of borders of the part of India that is currently named India.
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These are some of the books I read during last half a century or so, and some of the thoughts, questions, reactions and insights, emotions - and so forth -, evoked on reading them, either then or later sometime during the interim years and decades, or even thinking over now, that are summed up here while trying to record my impressions about what I read.
Serene, Reflecting
Life Recedes