I finally finished reading Amitav Ghosh's 'Sea of Poppies' - a thick, impressive looking book that had been sitting on my bookshelf for a while now, gifted to me by my parents a couple of years ago. It took me 2 years to start reading the book, and a good 10 months to finish it. Part of the fault was mine - I'm learning how to read again.
I usually like english books by Indian authors - my own roots help me connect with things they are trying to say, and catch subtle references or understand their analysis of facts I completely took for granted. I also like historical fiction. In that regard, this book didn't disappoint. It is set in the 1830s in northern India, primarily in Ghazipur and Calcutta, during a time when the country is overrun by the British and the opium trade. The story follows the lives of several people - villagers, colonials, middle men, ship-hands - who all find themselves on a ship to the Mauritius islands.
Until I read this book, I knew little about India's history with opium, especially centered in a place like Ghazipur, so close to home. Last year I met a girl from the island of Reunion who had told me a little about how her ancestors ended up there, and it was probably that conversation with her that gave this story so much depth - it was real, it happened, and this history is still very much a part of the people who descended from those early settlers near Africa, so far away from their homeland.
It all felt a little unreal though - learning about farmers being forced to give up growing food in their fields, and instead filling it with poppies to feed to the hungry opium factories which gave the British their wealth; learning about the ugly reach of the caste system which so divided the country amongst its own people; the deals the colonial rulers made with the local rulers, and how the river was the main highway for transportation during those days.
Then again, it's not a book I'll probably go back and read again - all the sailor-speak and British-hindi drove me nuts, and in his effort to make the book as authentic as possible by taking into account the different accents people speak in, Mr. Ghosh made it almost unreadable in many places.
Then again again - there were some truly novel characters I came across - the half-chinese/half Parsee drug addict named Ah-Fatt (hehe), a french girl who is more Indian than French, and a resourceful grey-eyed village woman named Deeti. My one favorite part of the book was the scene where Kalua is being whipped for a crime, and the next few seconds of how he deals with the upcoming blows were simply magical. Everything a book should be - and something that only the most talented of movie directors could truly capture to relate on screen.
Apparently, this was the first in a trilogy. I might pick up the other two, but only if the author makes his sailors and sahibs shut up for once.
