Wednesday evening at The Park Hyderabad was one-of-a-kind --- as celebrated author Amitav Ghosh had come down to the city to discuss his latest book River of Smoke with Jyotirmaya Sharma, an eminent author and professor of Political Science at the University of Hyderabad in the presence of book lovers. “Hyderabad has been an important reading city and I am delighted to be finally here,” exclaimed the author, who then went on to reading an excerpt from the River of Smoke. Ghosh explained that the second title in the Ibis Trilogy is very different from the first title Sea of Poppies. “River of Smoke has different themes, different characters and is headed in a new direction — towards southern China — the city of Canton (now known as Guangzhou) in particular. Its principal protagonist is Bahram Modi, the father of Ah Fatt, the half-Chinese convict in Sea of Poppies,” revealed Ghosh. He accepted that he has been surprised by the response of the readers for his books. “An amazement was invoked when my book became a bestseller, because it is a big fat book, which is definitely not cheap — and it neither about cricket, nor about Bollywood,” confessed Ghosh, adding, “My book is about some faraway place and time, and it is extremely gratifying to receive such a positive response from the readers.” Talking about the reason behind choosing the opium trade of the 19th century as the base to a trilogy of novels, Ghosh explained, “I have always been fascinated by the migration of labourers. Writing of this Trilogy started as a writing of departures. I wanted to understand what it was like for deeply-rooted people from India’s heartland to travel across the seas because it took a lot of courage to undertake such a journey.” He further added, “Opium played a decisive role in the history of 19th and early 20th century Asia. It was one of the financial pillars of the British Raj and it had catastrophic consequences for Chinese society. No other commodity (except perhaps oil in the 20th century) has had such a decisive impact on history. Plus, our lives are literally not possible without opium — right from the money one gets from opium trade, to the basic medicines that we consume, it opium everywhere. So, what could be more interesting than opium to write about.” Ghosh, who is known for his beautiful and poetic description, for his rich and colourful characters and for his way of retelling the past, believes that he can only write fiction and not history. “Fiction is what interests me and I think I have a talent in writing fiction. History is not what gets me out of bed every morning --- it would bore me. I love to give details, about people, about places and everything,” revealed Ghosh, who says that various journals and newspaper reports have helped him in his research to write the Ibis Trilogy. “There are a lot of details around — newspaper reports, letters, journals — a; of them have a lot of facts and details. One of my most productive research has been at the Greenwich Maritime Museum,” added the author. Long, dramatic and highly engaging stories, intrinsic details, a large number of colourful characters — this, and a lot is more is present in all of Ghosh’s books. But at the end of the day, even a master writer like him is bound to have a writer’s block. According to him, when he was in his 20s, he used to get very tensed when he would not be able to fill his pages, but as he grew older, he realised how to get over his writer’s block. “My writer’s block is caused either due to anxiety or fatigue. So whenever I feel like I am not able to come up with my best, I go for a walk,” said Ghosh before signing off.
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