The truth is, sir, that men do what their power permits them to do. We are no different from the Pharaohs or the Mongols: the difference is only that when we kill people we feel compelled to pretend that it is for some higher cause. It is this pretence of virtue, I promise you, that will never be forgiven by history.
Sea of Poppies is tale of movement – of people, of ideas, of dreams and of fears. Its characters move, mostly by circumstance or force, and some by choice, from places and societies they were born into, to lands and bonds that go beyond their imaginations. Amitav Ghosh’s narrative traces the movement of the myriad characters into the ship, Ibis, where they forge bonds that can only emerge from the shared joys and travails of a long journey.
As a novel, Sea of Poppies is interesting for a range of different reasons: it’s orchestral structure and form, the deft handling of a history that often goes unspoken, the enlivening of tensions that arise when a new society is formed and it’s effortless bridging of the gap between tales of “sea” and “land”. Ghosh’s mastery over the novel form is apparent as he effortlessly guides the story from the dusty plains and crowded cities through the rivers into the, often placid and occasionally furious, sea. The characters, from the rustic Deeti and Kalua to the urbane Raja or the vagabond Zachary are as different in their stations as are notes from a rumbling drum and a soothing violin. That the author combines these disparate pieces into a single seamless narrative makes this novel worth reading for anyone.
While the technical wizardry is unquestionable, the greatest triumph of Sea of Poppies is that it is a subtle but utterly damning satire of British colonial rule. Ghosh does not use the plot or the characters to caricature the colonials; in the truest Orwellian legacy he uses language. The sun might look to be rising indefinitely on the British empire and free trade might have taken its position alongside Bible as yet another undeserved gift to the natives, but the tongue spoken by the British in India is as unintelligible to any English speaker in any age as is the Bhojpuri or Bengali of the locals, or the bastard vocabulary of the lascars at sea. All these people need Ghosh, an Indian writing in understandable English to make their voices heard. In other words, the British masters are share greater fellowship with the populace they loathe than the inhabitants of an island across seven seas. In reducing the masters to the same level as the subjugated in their ability to communicate, Ghosh mocks and shows the essential contradiction in the colonial psyche.
For all the above reasons and also for the fact that it is fun to read, Sea of Poppies is a must read. And in a rather disconnected note, I cannot understand how the Booker committee thought Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger is a better piece of literature.
