The Week India – June 30, 2019

JUNE 30, 2019 • THE WEEK 113

GUN ISLAND

Author: Amitav Ghosh

Publisher: John Murray

Pages: 320

Price: 0699

WORDS AS

WISDOM

Amitav

Ghosh

receiving

the Jnanpith

from former

West Bengal

governor

Gopalkrishna

Gandhi on

June 12

dead zones in the sea. “Th is is just
the beginning,” he says. “Th ings are
only going to get worse.” Th e reality is
as dark as his linen shirt, but Ghosh
says he has “an ethical commitment
to not pull the rug, even though we
can see how bad things are and how
much worse they are going to get”.
Gun Island is racy, compelling and
important, but it may not be his most
perfect novel. Th e climate-linked
urgency, which looms large in the
background, overtakes the storyteller
in Ghosh in some ways. But then,
Gun Island is his most committed
and honest work. It may be dreary,
but there is hope. “Writing dysto-
pia is a white man’s thing,” Ghosh
laughs. “We can’t say it is all doom.”

Gun Island is the story of modern

times. Ghosh, like his characters,

grapples with big, overwhelming ide-

as, like the power of the internet and

its impact on communities, climate

change and migration. For research,

he travelled across migrant camps

in Europe. “Th e conversations didn’t

happen,” he says. “I sought them

out. I spoke to many people. Not

only Bangladeshis, but to Arabs and

Pakistanis.”

Th e stories he discovered were not

necessarily driven by desperation.

“Th ey are diffi cult stories because you

hear about these terrible experiences

of torture in Libya. But the thing I re-

alised most of all, is that I would have

done the same thing at age 20 in sim-

ilar circumstances,” says Ghosh. “At

20, you are invincible. Th e weird thing

about cellphones is that they rein-

force this sense of invincibility. Often,

when I spoke to these guys, about do-

ing this incredibly dangerous thing of

crossing the Mediterranean in leaky

old boats, I had the sense that these

kids thought that because they had

the cellphone in their hands, that it

won’t happen to them. It is like those

people who stand on the edge of the

cliff and take those selfi es and die.”

At 22, Ghosh hitchhiked across

the Sahara. At 60, he has conquered

almost every bookshelf in the world.

From being a writer of engaging

historical novels, he has evolved into

one with a purpose. His generation,

as he likes to put it, was the bridge

between the typewriter and the com-

puter. It is in these 30 years that the

world has changed. “In some ways,

the culture I grew up in is another

country,” he says.

A climate crusader, Ghosh is mind-

ful of the impending disaster. Is there

hope? “I remember a time when

people’s hopes were not connected to

commodities,” he says. “People lived

for their children, for friends, their

families, their communities. Th is

crisis will remind us what is actually

important.”

PTI