Outlook – July 20, 2019

by Sudhirendar Sharma

A

MITAV Ghosh’s anxiety on the

subject of climate change had

come out clearly in The Great

Derangement (2016), wherein

his conjecture on our collective

inability to fathom lurking

dangers of climate change was united

with an absence of serious literature

on the subject. The world has changed

too much, too fast and so profoundly

that not much sense can be made of it

in non-fiction. Therefore, the conven-

tional cause-effect narrative on the

emerging environmental catastro-

phe rarely engages a large section

of the affected and elicits a collec-

tive response.

It is only through stories that the

universe can speak to us, contends

Ghosh, and our failure to listen may

invite punishment. It makes sense

as we are the only species gifted with

the faculty of storytelling that helps

us capture the inward mysteries of

our existence. Gun Island provides the

mythical backdrop that connects the

past with the present in Dinanath or

Deen’s journey in tracing the footsteps

of the gun merchant who had suppos­

edly traversed the world in search of a

safe haven to evade the wrath of the

goddess of snakes, Manasa Devi. Deen’s

travels from the marshes of the Sundar­

bans to the gradually sinking Venice via

fire­ravaged California is intermeshed

with flights of imagination over dots of

reality in building a compulsive story of

contemporary relevance.

Plotted over a span of three centuries,

from the little ice age to the current phase

of global warming, the story remains alive

to the unfolding ecological crises. The

alarming decline of Irrawa ddy dolphins

in the Sundarbans and the invasion of

venomous brown recluse spider in Venice

provide evidence of shocking things

happening around us. Ghosh brings to life

non­human, silent, characters in the

story—essentially a heady cocktail of

myths, folklore and legends. “The pri­

mary literary challenge of our time is to

give voice to the non­human”. Gun Island

succeeds in integrating the non­human

into an abs orbing, partly thrilling, novel

that blurs the lines between the real and

the imaginary. Kneading past with pres­

ent, connecting the human with the

non­ human, and coupling myth with

rea lity emerge as its most striking feature,

an essential prelude to looking beyond

the obvious in making a sense of the per­

vasive crisis looming over us all.

Resting on the undercurrents of mig­

ration, a theme that has engaged the aut­

hor since the Ibis trilogy, Gun Island

provides astute observations on migra­

tion—posited here as function of pove rty

as well as a quest for connectedness. One

of the most urgent and fraught themes

that our political structures have sought

to evade has fuelled tales of escape from

destitution and persecution. But Ghosh’s

essential point is that the theory of depri­

vation is insufficient to explain the advent

of the ‘people­moving industry’—one the

world’s biggest and still growing enter­

prises. More than freak cyclones, smart­

phones and computers are stoking the

desire for connecting with a perceived

world of opportunities elsewhere. Does

this notion of interconnection, while

exp anding small worlds, not play back on

the abandoned rivers and fields?

The exceptionally gifted Ghosh crea tes

an imagery we may not have sensed bef­

ore. Rising temperatures and shifting

habitats are inextricably linked to our

past, things humans have lost control

over. It follows that we do not recognise

the problems created by our way of life. As

every individual is ince ntivised to

imp rove his/her sta ndard of living,

with states driven by the capitalist

model of growth, what will drive us to

exit the comfort zone of this ‘new

normal’ remains a vexed question.

Gun Island has all that which draws

attention to the symptoms of demo nic

possession that the world of today

presents. Towards the end of the novel,

the glamorous Italian historian lets

Deen get a sense of her predicament:

“everybody knows what must be done if

the world is to continue to be a livable

place...and yet we are powerless, even the

most powerful among us. We go about our

daily business through habit, as though

we are in the grip of forces that have

overwhelmed our will; we see shocking

and monstrous things happening around

us and we avert our eyes; we surrender

ourselves willingly to whatever it is that

has us in power.”

As public response to climate change

is caught between the polarities of

widespread denial and overt activism—

which is also under surveillance by the

military­industrial complex—fiction

has the power to knock society free of

the shackles of cultural cognition and

motivated reasoning. Ghosh argues

that there can be no compelling period

in human history to recognise the urg­

ency for such an engagement. O

(Sudhirendar Sharma is an independent

writer, researcher and academic)

A Bullet With Manasa’s Name

Ghosh deploys myth and history to focus on the scary maw of a violated

nature and the digitally-aided transfer of people. And we carry on, in denial.

booksAmitav Ghosh

Gun Island | Penguin RandomHouse | 286 pages | Rs 699

In the mist hanging over

the Sundarbans, Ghosh

blurs lines between real

and imaginary, kneads

past with present, human

with non-human and

myth with reality.

62 OUTLOOK 22 July 2019