The Hungry Tide

“The Hungry Tide” languished in my book shelf for four years before I picked it up again a couple of weeks back. Some years back my love for Indian authors writing in English turned into extreme aversion and all the books that I had bought overwhelmed by my amour at that point, were discarded unread (never uncared for). Two weeks back I faced an unusual problem.. not having anything to read. Picked up “The Hungry Tide” and am writing about it to sort out my feelings for Indian writers in general and Amitav Ghosh and “the Hungry Tide” in particular.

The setting is unusual, the Sunderbans, caught between the Bay Of Bengal and the plains of Bengal the novel traces the life of people who are also caught between fact and folklore, reality and idealism, hope and despair, marriage and infatuation, choice and compulsion. I do not know who the protagonist of the novel is, there is Kanai a suave business man linguist Casanova forced to visit Lusibari to visit an aging aunt. Nilima the aunt successfully manages to not box herself in the stereotype of the lonely, frail widowed aunt and is actually the most tenacious character who is at peace with herself and the life she has chosen to create in Lusibari. Piya, the young Indian American cetologist on her quest to explore the Gangetic dolphins of Sunderbans, unsure of herself away from water but erudite and confident around the marine mammals. Fokir the unlettered but wise fisherman, his wife Moyna struggling to better her life in the unforgiving Sunderbans. Horen is the boatman in the background who connects the present to the past. Finally Kanai’s uncle Nirmal the absent minded Rilke loving school teacher and the beautiful strong woman Kusum who enthralls all and who is amalgamation of the best that each character in the book has to offer. I will have to give credit to the author for having created distinct characters who if not complete are distinct.

Kanai comes to Lusibari in the Sunderbans after many many years to read some transcripts left behind by his late Uncle who harbored the dreams of being a writer in his youth but spent his life teaching the children in Lusibari. Nilima in the meanwhile created a life for herself centered around the hospital she built and the many lives she touched through it. She is rooted to reality doing more good than any of the ideologists could ever hope to do. Piya on her way to study the Irrawaday dolphin briefly meets Kanai. Intrigued and comforted by each other’s presence in unfamiliar rustic Bengal they move on their journey separately. A twist of fate brings Kanai and Piya together again, this time their meeting is saddled with the presence of Fokir. The three collaborate as they move on to understand the dolphins and their lives. Kanai also reads through his uncle’s transcripts on his journey on the Ganges. Nirmal writes about his brief passionate liaison with a movement of a group of displaced indigenous people to reclaim one of the islands as their habitat towards the end of his life. The impatient and restless passion that this chance encounter ignites in Nirmal is symbolic of the angst that each character in the book goes through as s/he tries to harmonize her aspirations with reality. His writings also add to the enigma of the Sunderbans explaining the mystique through folklore, science and a breathtakingly real portrait of the swamps.
However the narrative gets stalled midway as Piya discovers her Gangetic Dolphins a little soon for me quelling the anticipation that the first half of the book builds. Post the discovery, for me the book was a maze of conversations, events in the Sunderbans, dalliances with ones’ fear, encounters with the beasts of the Sunderbans and the chemistry of unlikely alliances all leading to something that was not quite obvious as I read through the second half. The pace of the book slows down, the narrative gets tedious and I quite miss my “aha” moment in the book, the insight around which the story seems to have been woven. As the book ends Piya and Horen actually start to find the peace of mind that has eluded them throughout the journey and maybe most of their adult life. As for me I also did find my “aha” moment (albeit a little late) in the last line of the book as Nilima says “.. For me home is wherever I can brew a pot of good tea”. See I liked Nilima from the beginning of it all.
As for my verdict on Indian writers, this one has left me little more confused. I am a very simple reader I read books for the stories they offer. This one had an average story in extraordinary settings and some interesting if half baked people in it. I was engaged enough to read through it (yes I do commit the ultimate reader's transgression of abandoning books half way through)but was not enthralled enough to say WOW. So for now, for my love of the "Shadow Lines" more than this one I will say that Amitav Ghosh is not half bad.