Break a mirror and set splintered fragments thereof in walls with a rough finish, and then attempt to patch a reflection of surroundings of today and of yore - this is somewhat the image of this work, of events of the story and of history as seen in this.
The writer here attempts to deal with his own childhood trauma experienced in Dhaka where his parents were stationed as diplomatic corps from India during sixties, where he lived through riots and a murderous mob surrounding their own home in faraway diplomatic enclave, specifically attempting to massacre the family for crime of being Hindu. This event has left so deep, so strong an impression as to be a character molding factor and the writer has never since been able to deal with his own roots as Hindu, his own deep ancient cultural heritage, and has instead spent his life and writings attempting to defend other similar cultures from the vast neighbourhood while never quite being able to defend his own Hindu culture from ignorant attacks.
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He combines these happenings here to provide a background and a shocking ending to the work while dealing with the life of eastern part of India as it was, whole rather than the part that retains the name, with people moving from Dhaka to Calcutta to Burma to London back and forth before and after independence and partition, the movement between Dhaka and Calcutta as rare post independance as that between Burma and the rest - Burma was as much part of India prior to war as any other part of India - and in the process he deals also with the various psychological elements and processes that went into the British-Indian relationships, shown here on personal level between two extended families through three generations.
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He mentions, as himself and as protagonist - since his own story is not that exactly of the protagonist here but could easily be in part that of a cousin, especially the part that constitutes not only the shocking end but the very raison d'etre for the work, one cannot separate the two - the differences between physical proximity and nationhood, and attempts to say without quite saying it (if he had said it he could be pinned as extremist by those that have appropriated the label "secular" and targeted as a fanatic, and he takes care to stay on the safer side at any cost, including howling like the wolves most of the time and at any rate avoiding being identified as not a wolf) that arbitrary lines drawn on paper do not constitute nations, that nations do exist in sense far more than political states at any time and have an identity beyond the decisions made by any political state authority regarding borders.
This has been proved amply of course and as recently as two decades ago by the fall of Berlin wall uniting Germany on one hand while reconstitution of the erstwhile Soviet Union into its parts - Russia is still very large, and does constitute a nation, but Ukraine and Baltic nations and central Asian regions have separated as independent nations, remaining however as parts of the federation under the Russian umbrella. Britain meanwhile is slowly inching towards a similar cultural freedom and political one as well, what with resurgence of the once forbidden Welsh language as a very living one, a parliament of its own for Scotland, and so forth.
That India might be such a living nation with the arbitrary borders drawn post war - for convenience of the rulers that left in a hurry and gave in to demands forced with massacres - might be false really, and India is a living nation that includes the various parts no longer included in the name India post world war two, is what the author avoids saying explicitly - instead he resorts to maps, compasses, comparisons across the globe about how events faraway usually do not affect people, and a lot of obscure language.
Fair enough, considering the threats to life of Rushdie and several others - Taslima Nasreen, for example - who have been targeted with orders from religious authorities towards their murder and promises of paradise for those executing the orders, for writing truths that were comparatively smaller in scale or dreams that were interpreted by those ordering murders. If Ghosh wishes his self and his family to live in reasonable safety, he can hardly afford not to be obscure about false lines drawn to cut up a real living nation into new nations that are forever tied in tandem and affected by happenings thousands of miles away as long as they are in the parts of the nation that really is a living one.
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One unpleasant factor is the unnecessary part of artificially added spices or sauces, the now almost compulsory descriptions of certain kind in every work published these days, whether necessary for the particular tale or not, and in this one such an inclusion makes it a splintered and pale copy of Sophie's Choice, about which one comment went that it was a teenage boy in US getting to finally have sex on the background of antisemitism, world war two, holocaust, Europe trodden under fascist boot and what have you.
If the author here had managed to avoid that trap, or for that matter the fractured nature of the story telling that begins to come across as gimmicky and irritates even the most patient reader, and instead gone into the trauma of India in depth, he might just have managed to author a great work.
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One recurring theme in this author's work is the delusion planted quite deliberately in minds of several such displaced or otherwise gullible persons, that is, everything would have been automatically fine for them and for the whole nation - if only the partition had not divided the great big provinces of Bengal and Punjab at India's independence. This mentality also prevails in many who are all too willing to divide their own nation further at a whiff of any demand supported by armed terrorists. Tamilians were surprised why Indian government wouldn't simply agree to give away what remains of Punjab when there was a demand for Khalistan, for example.
Considering the way demand for partition was agreed to, namely, post Jinnah's call for "action day" in Calcutta executed with a massacre of thousands of Hindus in less than three days, with knives not machine guns, this easy solution mentality seems to be almost a necessity of being seen as a peace loving secular person if one is a Hindu.
Fact is however, facts speak otherwise since the partition and before, long centuries of history and decades since over half century ago. There is no way one can be reasonably certain that the same bloodbaths and exodus of Hindus from eastern and western parts given away in name of Jinnah's demand would not have happened if only those parts given away had included all rather than most of the two provinces, on the contrary. Better parts of the provinces did go to the separated new nation, and ever since then there has been an attempt to "cleanse" their nations - one until the independence war of '71 proved that a demanding and conversion-or-die faith cannot be a factor to hold a nation together, although it can divide one - of all other faiths, by law and taxation and other, more persuasive methods.
Fact is, refugees from those separated and otherwise named parts to India have been a continous stream, and what is more it includes huge populations of Muslims as well, with an agenda - not only explicit but published explicitly too - of settling parts of India and increasing numbers until those parts too can be demanded in name of Islam. That the same threat looms over Israel too is not a secret.
Ghosh though goes further than that, and questions why the war of '62 that threatened the integrity of the nation seriously matters more over localised riots in Calcutta connected to riots across the border in Khulna, Dhaka and so forth with several persons dead, especially since they were connected to the mysterious disappearance of a hair of the prophet in Kashmir and subsequent riots there.
He is very explicit in this book in his disdain, about a few soldiers dead in a war in faraway hills that did not affect the nation, according to him - although one might ask what can one expect of a person who calls Himaalaya "hills", and faraway ones at that in context of India. Perhaps he is thinking from the China-US point of view, both of whom are in fact far away in their centre of gravity from Himaalaya although deeply involved politically in the neighbourhood nevertheless.
This, in view of his calling himself Indian, is about as reasonable as any US citizen thinking the civil war of north and south was more important than the two world wars and the cold war with threats of nuclear holocaust looming over the nation to boot. This point of view might be of a southerner who left the country at the conclusion of the civil war to live in Mexico or further south, dreaming of return with a bigger force to win the war back for a Confederacy. For Ghosh, the parallel would be his persuading India to give away whatever "they" demand, whoever "they" be, in the interest of peace and being seen as reasonable by powers west. Or east.
A convenient point of view for someone who lives in US, after all, and enjoys the perks of being seen as Indian while living in a rich society. A parallel would be someone Jewish living in US advising giving away anything demanded by not only Palestinians but all surrounding nations as well, and calling the various wars unimportant while naming the local riots more worthy of publicity.
One wonders if he would have the same point of view about giving away, say, Alaska to Russia - the lease has expired, after all - or New York to the Dutch, Louisiana and a few other parts to France, California to Spain and Mexico, and so forth. He is probably more loyal to his adopted nation, if only for sake of his family and their wellbeing, unless he goes by reason and extends his positions about India to his chosen country too. It would only be fair, at that.
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In the story, the protagonist's "practically twin" Ila is obsessed with the "yellow haired" Nick Price, never mind how casual he is about her - he will use her for any purpose that suits his needs but won't commit anything except empty vows, not kept at all even immediately post honeymoon. He won't defend her from a bunch of bullies in childhood from being beaten up in street any more than he won't refrain from using the apartment bought by her father for the newly married couple to have sex with other women day long regularly, or think of schemes of business using her father's money to further his own living. He has returned from a well paid job in Kuwait due to shady business on his part, but is in no hurry to earn a living even post wedding.
This Nick Price that Ila is nevertheless obsessed with long before she manages to marry him - one wonder if she was the best Nick could catch under his circumstances, he couldn't have found a better one amongst his own, although whether he would treat such a one better is a moot question, and most likely not is the obvious answer - this Nick Price is the alter ego of the protagonist according to his explicit mentioning thereof as soon as the name is mentioned by Ila, and this tells perhaps a lot more about the author and his background at that.
For all that his avowal of nationhood across arbitrary borders being false goes, he - the protagonist or his fractured identity twins across his family for that matter, and so perhaps the author after all - identifies more with a colonial power that occupied, looted, and left when it suited them, never mind the millions that died in riots that were foreseen clearly as coming due to the arbitrary borders drawn by those that had never seen the country except to sit in an office to draw the borders.
Ghosh, no surprise, is more comfortable living clear across the globe and making pronouncements high handed with a nose turned up, not so different from the various Germans who begin to advise India about what to do about the crowds or health or what have you (forgetting their own lack of any suitable experience that might excuse such pronouncements) as soon as they meet someone from India. He - this writer - after all does identify with his obsession with those that left, if only because they have yellow hair flipping in their eyes - there has never been any other justification mentioned of Ila's obsession with Nick Price other than this in the whole book. She makes up a story to herself about his protecting her, and insists on the lie even after her marriage is immediately proven empty. Nick is no more than a cheater, whether in finance at workplace or in personal relationships.
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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