chapter v narrative techniques -...

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Chapter V

Narrative Techniques

The fictional corpus of Ghosh deals man’s most nurtured dream of

home and freedom from economic restrictions as well as man’s problem

of existential challenges arising from demarcation and re-demarcation of

national boundaries by the political ideology of fallacy in solving the

problems of communal issues. For presenting all these ideologies as well

as human problem in the fiction, Ghosh applies different narrative techniques

and devices in the novels choosen for study. Ghosh’s art of narration is not

restricted to just one narrative technique. In these novels, he applies various

narrative techniques. From the close reading, it is found that is not satisfied

with the traditional ways of narration and narrative art. As a creative writer his

novels reveal new creations in the art of narration. G. J. V. Prasad in his review

article “Nebulous Boundaries” comments “To my mind every book that Ghosh

has written is of importance because of what he is trying to say and how he

says it. If human being survives that long, well yes, they will be reading his

books a century hence” (Indian Review of Books 19).

Amitav Ghosh makes use of various narrative techniques in all his

novels. In his first novel The Circle of Reason, third person narration is used

and the novel presents nothing that can be called ‘home’ besides projecting and

dealing with man’s problem of alienation, migration, and existential crises in

life. The novel is a freely constructed narrative, and various stories and

episodes are blended in wholeness by creating metaphors. The narration of

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events is not in a linear system but memories bring the reader back and forward

in time, whereas in The Shadow Lines, the first person narration is used through

the unnamed narrator. The new technique of narration of history through

reading of newspaper clippings is employed. The novel, In An Antique Land

also shows first person narration of Ghosh’s experience. The autobiographical

narration is tactfully handled by Ghosh.

In The Calcutta Chromosome Ghosh has given importance to the

narration through the extensive dialogues and events and development of the

novel, and employed the art of narration through the computer screen display.

The cinematic devices of narration is used by Ghosh, perhaps with a view to

use elasticity in time element of the novel which includes the events of a couple

of century blending history and fictional stories. Through the novels, Ghosh

portrays himself a talented, and innovative experimentalist. He tactfully makes

experiment with the form and narrative art in his novels. For example, Ghosh

uses flash back of memory to narrate the events of the past. The novel, The

Shadow Lines displays multi-layered events. While praising the narrative

technique in The Shadow Lines, Novy Kapadia comments that,

there is extraordinary density in the narrative texture of The

Shadow Lines. The overall story emerges in layers and each

layer is a fusion of private lives and public events all linked

into a thematic unity. Ghosh uses first person narrative from

dual view point, that of a child and the adult ‘I’. This gives a

sense of inhabiting both past and present simultaneously(21)




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Ghosh’s writing reveals extraordinary narrative techniques. Ghosh’s

technique of narrating the story undoubtedly holding attention and makes

the reader absorbed in the events of the story. Ghosh’s art of narration and

narrative technique are supplemented by his rich knowledge of English

language which is effectively used to represent the events or story or the

objects etc. Ghosh’s narration of cloth mill machinery in The Circle of

Reason is a better example of narrating inanimate things. Ghosh describes

the details of hall in the place of Burma for Royal Family in novel, The

Glass Palace as “Beyond lie the apartment of the royal family and their

servants – hundred and hundreds of rooms with gilded pillars and polished

floors. And right at the center there is a vast hall that is like a great shaft of

light, with shining crystal walls and mirrored ceilings. People call it The Glass

Palace.”

Ghosh’s narration of the plane’s take off at Dum Dum Airport is skilful

and exquisite. Ghosh writes as: “Its nose lifted, very gently, and then suddenly

unbelievable, the whole of its huge metal body was riding in the sky.” (The

Shadow Lines 192). Ghosh’s art of narration in detailing plane’s take off

creates visual picture coming out of narrated writings. Shobha Tiwari remarks

that, “Ghosh is a master at pointing out small details that actually make the

characters and the narrative real ” (Amitav Ghosh – A Critical Study 90).

Through the narrative techniques, Ghosh makes his fiction a real

experience to go through the novel in such a way that the reader is absorbed

in the lives and events narrated in the novel in spite of the fact that Ghosh




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uses non-linear narrative mode as well as chronological shifts and leaps in the

text of his novels. Ghosh has studied history, sociology, and social

anthropology for his D. Phil. in Oxford and for that reasons, his fiction

depicts an amalgamation of historical events and stories of the life of

middle class families by following his own particular narrative strategy.

Ghosh follows a similar oral narrative method in his first novel, The

Circle of Reason and tries to make use of the method through different

narrators. The traditional Indian method of storytelling, unique in the cultures

of the Eastern countries was quite unfamiliar to the West. The oral narratives

recounted by Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights under the shadow of death,

offer permanent enchantment to readers. Raja Rao has successfully made use

of oral narration in his novels. In Kanthapura Raja Rao describes the character

of a grandmother whose stories are listened to with eager attention by her

grandson. By resorting to these kinds of localised techniques, the postcolonial

writers depict their resistance to the imperial centre and reject the traditional

methods of narrations followed by the novelists of canonical literature. Thus,

instead of mimicking the West, people started trying to make their own cultural

heritage lively and traditional practices of writing. The ultimate intention of

these writers is to create an identity for themselves, which, they feared, were

lost in the colonial power structure.

Ghosh employs various narrative techniques in the novel The Circle of

Reason, wherein third person narration is applied. In his novel Ghosh focuses

on the insufficiency of reason and crossing boundaries, and the narrative of the




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novel provides many stories and many characters. However, three characters –

Balram – A Nationalist, Bhudeb of congressman and woman characters Zindi

and Jyoti Das emerges with Alu throughout the novel. Major characters tell

their stories. Ghosh uses metaphors of sewing machine, the book of the Life of

Pasteur, carbolic acid, and bird watching by Jyoti Das and through these

metaphors overall narrative structure of the novel is linked and woven into

wholeness of narratives. Vinay Kirpal in his review article “The unfolding of

Raga: Narrative structure in The Circle of Reason” comments as:

The major characters, in their various attempts of ‘reading

reality’ create and float in sea of metaphors. Carbolic acid runs

through the book connecting three parts. So do birds, sewing

machines, germs and the Life of Pasture. The other attempts at

understanding and giving and retaining control include singing,

weaving, politics, theories of straight roads, and queues among

others and each character plays his fiction as metaphors and

reality merge in the reading. (The New Indian Novel in English: A

Study of 80s 101)

In The Circle of Reason the ideas on sciences appear in part of the

novel whereas Damnhori section of the novel introduces a comprehension of

ideas and its application. While describing the theories of education through

the character of Balram, Ghosh asserts the need for manual skill as well as skill

of applying one’s mind. Ghosh has marked the part one of the novel as Satva:




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Reason and the narrative of the story of Balram projects Ghosh’s views on

education. Ghosh names the school as The School of Reason. Ghosh writes:

The school would have two main departments. After much

careful thought Balram had decided to name one the department

of Pure reason and the other department of practical reason:

abstract reason and concrete reason, a meeting of the two great

forms of human thoughts every student would have to attend

classes in both the departments. In the department of pure reason

that would be taught elements reading writing and arithmetic and

they would be given lectures in the history of science and

technology………. In the department of practical reason, the

student would be taught weaving and tailoring. (The circle of

Reason 107)

The narrative of Balram’s story and his ideas on school of reason did not

happen. Ghosh employs irony in the portrayal of Balram. However, the story

of Balram’s school of Reason shows Ghosh’s conciousness for middle class

families whose members cannot get education due to the problem of earning

for day to day necessities of food and shelter. Not only in The Circle of Reason

but also in Ghosh’s other novels, the characters are taken from middle class

families whose struggles are figuring in the Ghosh’s narratives. Balram is

presented as a man devoid of common sense. Ghosh’s art of narration is

expressed in Balram’s story about fire breaking out at Balram’s house. Balram

had planned for an attack on Bhudeb Roy with the help of Rakhal. But the




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outcome of the plan is fatal. Ghosh has narrated the picture of Balram’s ecstasy

showing how ironical the situation is. Instead of Budeb’s suppresion, Balram

finds the sorrounding fire that breaks out. Balram and everything and

everybody around him is covered by fire. Through the ironical situation,

Ghosh presents the Balram’s limited knowledge and folly. Ghosh narrates the

characters in the novel in an artistic way. Ghosh narrates Jyoti Das an

Assistant Superintendent of Police as “He is clean shaven and prides himself on

it, for it distinguishes him from his colleagues who tend generally to be

aggressively mustached. He is pleasant if not good looking and he looks

younger than his twenty five years. He is often mistaken for a college

student”(123). And Ghosh narrates, Shombhu Dobnath a skilful weaver and

Alu’s teacher a strong man with respects as “He was tall, spectrally dark and

skeletally thin. He was usually nearly naked, with only a thin gamcha wound

around his waist, displaying proudly the corded muscles he bore all over him as

a legacy of his years of weaving and wandering”(69).

Ghosh narrates the character, Zindi who is expert in telling the things or

narrating the events of a story. Ghosh narrates the character of Zindi as “That

was Zindi’s power. She could bring together empty air and give it a body just

by talking of it. They could never tire of listening to her speak in her welter of

languages, though they know every word just as well as they know the lines of

songs” (213).

About Zindi’s art of narration, Ghosh writes about the reaction of the

audience to her art of narrating the story. Ghosh observes:




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They crouched on mats around Zindi, listening to every word.

They had lived through everything Zindi spoke of and had heard

her talk of it time and again yet it was only in her telling that it

took shape, changed from mere incidents to a palpable thing, a

block of time which was not hours or minutes or days but

something corporeal with its malevolent willfulness. (The circle

of Reason 212)

Ghosh’s own art of narration is better expressed through the writing

about Zindi’s art of narrating story. About Ghosh’s art of narration,

G. J. V. Prasad, in his review article – “Rewriting the World: The Circle

of Reason” as the beginning of the Quest comments as:

With an anthropologist’s sense of detail and a historian’s grasp

of facts and chronology and with a creative writer’s curiosity

about causation and effects and great narrative skill and

imagination, Ghosh weaves together a plurastic and self-

reflective view of the world – one that challenges the smugness

of accepted narratives and point of view and certainties of

post-colonial borders as well as generic boundaries. (Amitav

Ghosh – Critical perspective 56)

Thus Ghosh employs different narrative techniques. Sometimes Ghosh

uses symbols, images, and metaphors in his novel to articulate intense and

otherwise inexplicable feelings, thoughts, and ideas. Even Ghosh’s narrating




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of the characters and an event creates visual effects wherein the reader is

trapped and absorbed involuntarily.

The narration of The Shadow Lines moves through the consciousness

of an unnamed adult male narrator. He looks back into his childhood and

expresses his personal experiences with the major historical events of colonial

and postcolonial India. The beginning of the story is set in the colonial India,

when the Second World War broke out. The narrator was not yet born at that

time. The novel opens with a statement: “In 1939, thirteen years before I was

born, my father’s aunt Mayadebi, went to England with her husband and her

son Tridib”(The Shadow lines 1). The novel reaches its climax when Tridib is

murdered in a street riot near his mother’s home in Dhaka. In 1979, the

narrator recollects the memories of a Hindu – Muslim riot that took place in

Calcutta in 1964. The novel stretches over four decades, deals with the story of

three generations, and builds upon the life and interactions of two families - the

narrator and his relatives in India, and May Price and her parents in London.

Tridib is the important story teller in this novel in the middle of a multitude of

stories and narrators. He gives the legacy of his memories, experiences and

recollections to the protagonist-narrator who then actively seeks to

reconstruct the history of his family, which can be seen as an allegorical

representation of the history of India.

The first section of the novel “Going Away” begins when a native is

going away to the land of the coloniser. Robert Dixon argues “Unlike the

usual colonial travel in which Westerners travel to India to absorb an




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ancient and self-contained culture, The Shadow Lines begins with an Indian

passage to England: the natives are the travelers” (Amitav Ghosh : A Critical

Companion 21).

The recollected stories are narrated within various geographical

locations: the War-devastated London, the post-Partition East Bengal and the

riot-hit Calcutta. It tells the story of three generations introducing characters

throbbing with life from different nations, religions, and cultures. The

deployment of chronotopic flexibility propounded by Bakhtin enables Ghosh to

move easily in the spatio- temporal realm. The narration is non-linear as there

are departures and diversions. The narrator draws heavily from the oral

narratives to which he had listened during his childhood days and during the

stage of growing up. Memories come to his aid so as to enable him to relive in

the past and relate it to the future. His uncle Tridib, the master story-teller, has

given him “worlds to travel in and eyes to see them with” (216). The death of

Tridib raises many doubts in him. In his attempt to trace out the events that led

to his uncle’s death, he elicits reports from different narrators. From the

“multiple voices of multiple narrators” (217) he chances upon the final

redemptive mystery of Tridib’s death. It is from his father, his uncle Robi and

Tridib’s lover May Price that the narrator tries to deduce the mystery behind

Tridib’s death, the first time when he heard the excruciatingly painful news

from his father. When the narrator was only a child, his father took him to the

temple of Ma Kali and revealed the secret to him after eliciting a promise from

him to keep the matter a secret. He could recognize the true seriousness of the




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event only after fifteen years, from two narrators, one, Tridib’s brother, Robi

and the other Tridib’s lover, May Price.

The terrible scene of Tridib’s death left a lasting impression on Robi’s

mind. The memory of it was so agonising that in the beginning his sleep was

disturbed by dreams. He was not able to reproduce and narrate the situation

without fictionalizing it. The rickshaw in which his granduncle Jethamoshai

travelled appeared in his dreams like a gigantic ant-hill and its sides were

seething with hundreds of men. Robi made a serious attempt to prevent Tridib

from following May Price in her attempt to save Jethamoshai from the rioters.

But all efforts proved useless result and the place were covered with the dead

bodies of Tridib, Khalil and Jethamoshai. May Price, while narrating the way

in which Tridib got killed which she had witnessed fifteen years back, still

appears guilt-stricken and she thinks that she owes her life to him. But

gradually she gets rid of her guilt. “I know now I didn’t kill him, I couldn’t

have, if I had wanted. He gave himself up; it was a sacrifice, though real

sacrifice is a mystery” (The Shadow Lines 252).

The narrator does not draw information from just one source but trusts

on the narrative voices of those who are interrelated either through familial ties

or through friendship. But he couldn’t arrive at a convincing conclusion about

the mystery related to his uncle’s martyrdom. Though he found the library to

get the exact news, he was only disappointed to see how insignificant his

uncle’s death was to the world. The news was given at the bottom of the page

as ‘Twenty-nine killed in riots’(182). The media appeared indifferent in




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furnishing the exact details related to the sacrifice made by his uncle. The

understanding of the narrator that the martyrdom of Tridib will be wiped off

from the memory of the people if it is not recorded in history compels him to

write down their family chronicle and The Shadow Lines is the result.

In this different history all those who had played significant roles in his

development towards maturity were given prominent places. The stories that

Tridib narrates to the protagonist-cum-narrator are in the form of fragmented

recollections. This explains why the novel appears non- linear. The fictional

narrator whom Ghosh introduces in The Shadow Lines is an impartial historian

who makes efforts to present the aftermath of historical events on the lives of

ordinary people. He seeks to his aid, memories, recollections and orally

transmitted stories through the perspective of different narrators. As the

narration is allowed to examine through the perspective of multiple narrators, it

is not contaminated by the superior ideology of the author.

The events are narrated through the memory technique as above by the

unnamed narrator. Amitav Ghosh finds new ground in his narrative technique

without contradiction of convention narrations. Through the innovative

narrative technique, characters are brought alive with psychological depths and

locals and environments are evoked with ease and accuracy. Ghosh also uses

symbols, images and metaphors in his novel to articulate intense and otherwise

inexplicable feelings and thoughts metaphors of the Tridib’s letter of proposed

meeting is evidenced the events of relationship between May and Tridib.

Ghosh presents the letter from Tridib to May as:




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But he did know that that was how he wanted to meet her as the

completest of strangers – strangers across the seas all the more

strangers because they knew each other already. He wanted them

to meet far from their friends and relatives – in a place without a

past, without history, free really free, two people coming together

with utter freedom of strangers. (The Shadow lines 144)

Ghosh here uses metaphor of “ruins” and “meeting as strangers” to

mean unconditional meeting of Ghosh with May. Novy Kapadia in her review

article, “The metaphor of The Shadow Lines in Amitav Ghosh’s Novel”

comments as:

It implies that he wants to meet May, without the burden of

history, without any expectations or pre-condition or any divisive

shadow lines. May initially thinks that such as a letter is

intrusion of her privacy but then succumbs to curiosity and

decide to visit India and meet Tridib. (Perspectives on Indian

English Fiction 256)

That is how Ghosh employs the metaphor in his narrative. Ghosh

through the narrator in The Shadow Lines relates different kinds of events and

experience in different ways. For example, two political events, one war of

1962 and the other riots of 1964 – are differentiated through the newspaper

clippings. Riots of 1964 in Calcutta are narrated as, Ghosh writes:“I turned the

pages to the edition of Saturday, 11, January 1964 and sure enough there it was




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a huge banner headline which said: curfews in Calcutta, police open fire, 10

dead, 15 wounded,” (The Shadow Lines 144).

Thus Ghosh uses the metaphor of newspaper clipping to describe the

incident of past which is linked with the present through newspaper clipping.

Ghosh applies the narrative technique of trope, images, and maps etc. as

symbols to bridge the gap of time and of place. Because The Shadow Lines

does not support to a linear development of the story or events but the novel

bears multiple layers and themes which makes a complex narrative structure.

Ghosh presents multiple stories of three generations of two families: Mayadebi

and Price.

There are many facets of the story as of lives of past and present, private

life and public life, childhood and adulthood, love and violence, India,

Bangladesh, Britain, partition of India and Pakistan. Meenaxi Mukharjee

comments that apparently simple narrative of The Shadow Lines is in fact a

complex Jigsaw puzzle of varied item and place segments including some

magic piece that mirrors others. Novy Kapadia says:

There is an extra ordinary density in the narrative texture of The

Shadow Lines. The overall stories emerges in layers and each

layer is a fusion of private lives and public events all inked into

thematic unity. Ghosh uses first person narrative from a dual

viewpoint, that of a child and the adult. ‘I’ (21)

The story of the novel develops among continuously shifting temporal

and spatial planes. The narrative time co-incides with the consciousness




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of the narrator. The narrator is either listening to some of the other character’s

stories or he is recollecting his own memories and there is no fixed temporal

mode. Ulka Joshi in her review article – “Narrative Technique in The Shadow

Lines” – comments as:

In this ‘memory novel’ memory plays a crucial role. Weaving

together, past and present, childhood and adulthood, India,

Bangladesh and Britain, Hindu and Muslim, story and happening,

memory generate action of the novel and determines the form of

the novel – its partial answers, its digressions, its resolutions its

looping, nonlinear and wide ranging narrative techniques.

(Interpretations : Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow lines 111)

The novel presents many episodes which in fact do not happen at the

present time but they are narrated. Numbers of stories are told to the narrator

like grandma’s story about home in Dhaka or a story of Roby’s and May’s

accounts of Tridib’s death. Many stories are presented by the narrator as ‘I

remember’ style. The memory, its sources and resource which shape the novel

are sometime narrator’s own, and sometimes, many of his memories come

from the stories of the memories that Tridib and his grandmother had told him.

Ghosh has successfully employed this story telling technique. Ghosh fuses all

these stories / episodes in the family chronicle with the main plot structure of

the novel. Thus Ghosh uses multiple narratives, the story telling method, and

back and forth journey in time.




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About the time of events, the novelist projects certain time in the

episodic stories. There are constant time shifts and creates the problem of

chronology for the reader. Mita Bose in her article – “The Problem of

Chronology and the Narrative Principle in The Shadow Lines”, discusses at

length Ghosh’s presentation of definite time period in the novel by creating a

protagonist narrator describing remembered incidents with specific time

markers. Mita Bose has enlisted five incidents in 1939-40 and thirteen

incidents in each of 1960 periods and 1978-79 periods and she comments as

“Amitav Ghosh’s narrative strategy lies in juggling around this limited number

of events. He juxtaposes pairs of events from different time period and makes

the memory narrative alternate between them in a rhythmic manner” (Amitav

Ghosh – Critical perspectives 177).

Ghosh’s novel portrays frequent time-shift as it may look curious, but

the narrator undertakes a back and forth journey in time and reaches other time

span of the novel, Ghosh takes frequently recourse to time shift arbitrary.

Arvind Choudhary in his introduction rightly comments as: As it happens to be

a memory novel, the narrative is wrought in nonlinear mode. It moves back

and forth in utter disregard of our conventional notions of time and pace. This

technique enables Ghosh to make the narrator subsume and appropriate the

memories of other characters and make them a part of his own memory and

consciousness (Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines – Critical Essays 6).

Ulka Joshi in her article “Narrative Technique in The Shadow Lines”

comments about Ghosh’s treatment of time factor in the novel as:




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Backward and forward Journey in time is a recurrent device used

by the writer in the novel. This structural device is in harmony

with the novel being an extended memory. Besides that it also

presents a central theme that the line dividing past and present is

only shadow that the past lives in the present and present is

shaped by the past (Interpretations : Amitav Ghosh’s The

Shadow Lines 115)

Thus Ghosh uses different narrative techniques apart from symbols,

images, and metaphors. Though Ghosh employs first person narration, it also

enhances the credibility and authenticity of different narratives in the novel.

The innovative use of flash back and memory technique reveals the inner

aspects of the personality of his protagonist in various parts of the novels.

Besides it also focuses on novelist’s views and apprehension of life in the

context of freedom of the individuals and the meaning of violence and riots

experienced by the individuals. The historical fact of large scale riots and

violence of 1984 after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in India

has remained in backdrop of the novel as the novelist – Amitav Ghosh – was

witnessing the riots of 1984 when he was teaching at Delhi University and

shortly after that the novel is published in 1988. The year 1984 appears a

turning point in the writing career of Amitav Ghosh as in an article that

appeared in the Guardian in 1995, Ghosh says:

Nowhere else in the world did the year 1984 fulfill its apocalyptic

portents as it did in India, separatists’ violence in Punjab, the




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military attack on the great Shikh temple of Amritsor the

assassination of the Prime Minister, the gas disaster in Bhopal –

the events followed relentlessly on each other. There were days

in 1984 when it took courage to open the Delhi paper in the

evening.” – Of the year’s many bcatastrophes the secretarial

violence following Mrs. Gandhi’s death had a greatest effect

on Ghosh’s life (The Novels of Amitav Ghosh 20)

Soon after the above events, Ghosh began to write The Shadow Lines

which was published in 1988. The consequences of effects of aforesaid

violence on Ghosh’s mind are echoed through the narrative art of writing about

such violence through his following words:

Every word I write about those events of 1984 is the product

of a struggle with silence. It is a struggle I am destined to loose –

have already lost – for even after all these years. I do not know

where within me, in which corner of my world this silence lies.

All I know of it is what it is not, for the silence of an imperfect

memory(The Shadow Lines 218)

Thus the overall analysis of the novel, The Shadow Lines, depicts that

Ghosh’s innovative narrative technique, though novel having written in first

person narrative, has excelled the novel. Chote Lal Khatri in his review article,

"The Narrative technique in The Shadow Lines” rightly comments as:

In narrative technique it is an achievement of Amitav Ghosh

that he succeeds in giving a panoramic view of the world and




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in dramatizing the violence by the use of first person narrator.

Normally, a third person omniscient narrator is preferred to

give a panoramic view. On the whole it is memory novel, a

seamless collection of reminiscences of childhood which gets

transformed into an organic structure of the novel (The Fiction

of Amitav Ghosh 106)

In An Antique Land Amitav Ghosh projects two parallel stories of two

different civilizations of India and Egypt – one of 12th century based on

historical research and another of 20th century based on his experience during

visit of Egypt for his doctoral thesis. In the novel, Ghosh uses first person

narrative technique and presents the subversion of history of Ben Yiju’s life

and trade link between India and Egypt in 12th century as well as the cultural

relation between Egypt and India in modern times. Ghosh’s prime interest and

focus are on human relationship of two different culture and civilization. On

one hand, Ben Yiju and his slave Bhoma MS-H6 of 12th century carry on

business network between Aden, Egypt and India. Ghosh writes: “In matters of

business, Ben Yiju’s network appears to have been wholly indifferent to many

of those boundaries that are today thought to mark social, religious and

geographical division” (In An Antique Land 278).

While describing the life of Ben Yiju and his slave Bhoma (MS-H6)

in the section – Mangalore – Ghosh’s narratives simultaneously also present

his meeting with Prof. B. A. Vivek Rai who “was one of the world’s foremost

expert on Tulu folklore and philosophy”(246) in the summer of 1990. Ghosh




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also narrates his visit to Bhuta Shrine. Thus, Ghosh employs narrative

technique to run his own experience and life of Ben Yiju in two fold system of

narration.

Ghosh has constructed again the details of Ben Yiju’s life in Mangalore

with the help of letter of his business associates viz. Madmun ibn al-Hasan ibn

Bandar, Yusuf ibn Abraham and Khalaf ibnishak. Ghosh’s narrative also

focuses on the relationship between Ben Yiju and his slave Bhoma and narrates

that Bhoma, though slave, was given meagre salary of two Dinares per month

and he was entrusted with goods work hundreds of Dinars and sent to Aden and

Egypt by his master Ben Yiju. This leads the readers to believe that their

relationship was on the level of patron and client. Against such slavery system

of 12th century, Ghosh presents Nabeel’s employment in Iraq and his telephonic

talk with Nabeel for which, Ghosh writes “I wanted him to talk about Iraq, but

of course he would not have been able to say much within earshot of his boss

then I heard a noise down the line, it sounded as though some one was calling

to him from across the room … I heard his boss’s voice again shouting in the

background”(246).

Thus, Ghosh puts forth two forms of slavery one of Bhoma’s in 12th

century and another of Nabeel’s in modern fair name of giving ‘job /

employment’ in present time. Thus, Ghosh’s narrative moves back and

forth in time with thematic comparative study of history, past and present.

K. C. Belliappa in his review article – “Amitav Ghosh’s In An Antique Land:

An excursion into time past and time present” rightly observes:




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In An Antique Land demonstrate most powerfully how an

excursion into the past is no escape from the present but a

coming to grips with the present realities of living. By

juxtaposing the medieval and modern worlds to the 12th and

20th century in the two different civilizations of India and

Egypt with their diverse culture of Christianity, Judaism, Islam,

and Hinduism. Ghosh magnificently illustrates through his

fictional discourse the need for human understanding and

religious tolerance. A need which has now become a dire

necessity in a world which is torn apart by religious obscurantism

and fanaticism (The Post Modern English Novel Interrogating

the 1980s & 1990s 65)

That is how the narrative technique of Ghosh brings the reader to the

point of halt and thinks. Ghosh employs the narrative technique of dialogues

and develops the fictional stories. For example, Ghosh had a dialogue or talk

with Sheikh Musa about Lataifa and Nashawy’s during Ghosh’s visit in 1988 &

1990, when both of them talked about the betterment of living conditions and

other allied matters concerning the people of Lataifa & Nashawy at large. The

conversations of 1980 are removed and extended again in 1990. Ghosh fills

the gap of time factor in the fictional part of the novel. About the narrative

technique employed by Ghosh, Shirley Chew in her review article – “Texts and

world In An Antique Land” comments as:




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Beating back and forward in time, the narrative crisscrosses

personal recollections, gossip, the latest news, the stories of

Ben Yiju and Bhoma, and transcribed from Ghosh’s Doctoral

thesis, descriptive accounts of, say, rural markets, MOWLIDS,

Kinship system, Myth of origin (Amitav Ghosh Critical

Perspective 112)

Ghosh used violence and riots in the novel as it happened. Ghosh

uses the narrative technique of memory and newspaper clippings to narrate his

childhood experiences about riots and violence by Hindus and Muslims in

Calcutta and Dhaka at the time of Partition forming East Pakistan. About those

riots, Ghosh narrates positive aspect of the riots as:

But equally in both cities – and this must be said, it must always

be said, for it is the incantation that redeems our sanity – in both

Dhaka and Calcutta, there were exactly mirrored stories of

Hindus and Muslims coming to each other’s rescue, so that many

more people were saved then killed (In An Antique Land 209)

In the novel In An Antique Land, the first person narrative technique

is used by Ghosh who describes his fieldwork as well as historical

research. While narrating the history, Ghosh additionally writes about his

field work also. The time element in both the cases is the important factor

of narrations. Roma Chatterjee in her review article, “Between Myth and

Ethnography: An Anthropological reading of In An Antique Land”, comments

about Ghosh’s view as: “Ghosh moves back and forth between historical




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time and the time of his fieldwork in Egypt, the movement marked

metaphorically by parallelism between names and places.” (Amitav Ghosh –

Critical Perspectives 93).

Ghosh is gifted with an extraordinary narrative technique. His art of

narration is not just confined to one narrative technique. Ghosh employs

the narrative technique of describing events etc. through the memory

remembrance and newspaper clippings as well. Ghosh’s art of narrating the

city or house etc. inanimate bodies, he narrates with minute details. Ghosh

narrates the village house as:

His house was in the most crowded part of the village, near

the square, where the dwellings were packed so close together

that the ricks of straw piled on their roofs almost came together

above the narrow, twisting lanes. It was a very small house, a

couple of mud walled rooms with a low, tunnel like door (In An

Antique Land 130)

Ghosh describes the countryside and field in an effective narrative

art. For instance, Ghosh creates visualized picture of the field and country

side while narrating as:

I took advantage of a sudden clearing of the skies and set out

for the field with a book. It took a while to get through the

muddy lanes, but once the village walls were behind me it

seemed well worth it. The country side was extraordinarily

beautiful at this time of the year, whenever there was a clear




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day the wheat, clover, and maize stood brilliantly green against

deep blue skies, while Nashawy itself with its huddle of earth

houses seemed like a low range of hills brooding in the distance

(In An Antique Land 211)

About the narrative of In An Antique Land, Shyamala S. Agarwal in her

review article – “Nouns and Conjunctions In An Antique Land “ quotes,

Like many of its precursors, the novel moves in and out of two

narratives and time scales: One for the teller and other for his

tale. Both stories involve travel across cultures and continents,

the concurrent journeys enabling the author to reconcile the

contrary demands of dead and living, of time and space, of

involvement and distance (The Fiction of Amitav Gosh 118)

Thus, Ghosh has presented various techniques to focus the historical

events in comparison to present day situations of 20th century. R. K. Dhawan,

in his review article “The Novels of Amitav Ghosh: An Introduction”, while

introducing In An Antique Land writes:

In an interview, Ghosh talks about the book’s theme and form:

No this time I am not writing a novel. Not even sociology,

history or best sellers based an historical research. My new book

cannot be described as any one of these. It is strange sort of

work. Within the parameters of history, I have tried to capture a

story, a narrative, without attempting to write a historical novel.

You may say as a writer, I have ventured on technical




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innovations.” The anthropologist Ghosh is at his best in weaving

a complex pattern of fact and fiction (The Novels of Amitav

Ghosh 24)

The Calcutta Chromosome is Amitav Ghosh’s fourth novel and it can be

called a novel of twenty first century as it moves the reader through the multi-

wired world of computer technology, archaeology, and tropical medicine and

simultaneously making the reader traveling not only through the unusual

environment of New York, Egypt and Calcutta but also to the real places of

city of Calcutta. Ghosh with his art of narration, developed by his high

command of English language, presents the theory of science and counter

science with relation to Sir Ronald Ross’s world of research in Calcutta on

‘Malaria Puzzle’ that brought him Noble Prize in 1898.

The novel shows medical thriller, ghost stories, and mystery of accidents

and supposedly murders along with philosophical knowledge, science, and

Indian mythological belief, which Ghosh calls “counter science”. For all these

aspects Ghosh uses third person narrative art to describe the events of ghost

stories. The stories of the station master and his meeting with writer Phulboni

narrates the mystery of ghost’s moving the station lantern in dark night.

Phulboni’s senses are blurred at the incidence of human voice in the stormy

night. Ghosh writes: “At that very moment he heard a scream, a raging

inhuman howl that tore through the stormy night. It hurled a single word into

the wind –Lakhan – and then it was silenced by thunder of the speeding train

(The Calcutta Chromosome 227).




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Before this encounter of Phulbony, ground for such possible unlucky

accident has been created by Ghosh’s art of narrating through the dialogue

between Phulboni and the Stationmaster. Such story is brought into the

narratives as past memory told by one of the characters. Ghosh employs

flash back technique of narration. Ghosh writes: “Last night I went home

with Sonalindi and she told me something: a story she heard from her

mother, about something that happened to Phulbony many years ago” (In An

Antique Land 211).

About the narration of ghost stories, Bishnu Priya Ghosh, in her

review article “Spectral Ethics in The Calcutta Chromosome” comments:

The familiar other beckons the detective, the journalist, the

writer and the missionary to a larger ethical quest. Each

character is not just haunted by a ghost but by someone else

who is besieged by ghosts: Antar is fascinated by Murugan’s

fascination with Ronald Ross; Urmila by Sonalindi’s pursuit

of Phulbony, Murugan by D.D. Cummingham Crigson and

Farley and others (Amitav Ghosh : Critical Perspectives 124)

Ghosh employs his artistic narrative techniques to portray the inner

thinking of human mind through the character of Murugan who expresses

his knowledge on science and counter science through the narrative art of

dialogue. Murugan is intensely activated and his narrative talk with Antar

describes what Murugan is actually thinking. Through the character of

Murugan, Ghosh projects the philosophical aspect of science and counter




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science. Ghosh’s philosophical knowledge on science and scientific methods is

expressed through the narrative dialogue between Murugan and Antar. Ghosh

writes:

You know all about matter and antimatter, right? And rooms

and anti-rooms and cherish and anti-cherish and so on? Now

let’s say there was something like science and counter science?

Thinking of it in the abstract would not your say that the first

principle of a functioning counter science would have to be

secrecy? The way I see it, it would not just have to be secretive

about what it did (it could not hope to beat the scientists at that

game anyway); it would also have to be secretive in what it did it

would have to use secrecy as a technical procedure, it would in

principle have to refuse all direct communications straight off the

bat, because to communicate, to put ideas into language would be

established a claim to know – which is the first thing that a

counter science would dispute (The Calcutta Chromosome 88)

Ghosh further writes:

Mistaken are those who imagine that silence is without life. That

it is inanimate, without either spirit or voice. It is not: indeed the

word is to this silence what the shadow is shadowed, what the

veil is to the eyes, what the mind is to truth, what language is to

life. (The Calcutta Chromosome 24)




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Thus, Ghosh presents the concepts and theories of knowledge through

the creator’s art of narration as well as Ghosh’s command over the language to

explore philosophical aspect of science and counter science. In fact, Ghosh

challenges the western superiority on science and knowledge and makes the

western thinkers of science to sudden stop before rejection of Indian

mythological aspect of life and reincarnation.

The novel is plentiful in hundred years of time and the reader is

moved into cultural variety linking the distances between America, England,

Egypt ,and India. To bridge the time element as well as distance in various

stories, Ghosh employs narrative technique of symbols or images or motifs.

Ghosh uses cinematic techniques and devices of narration. To describee the

effects of ghost in the story, Ghosh utilizes symbol of station lantern –

obviously Lutchman’s lantern appears in Crigson’s episodes and Phulbony’s

episodes of his encounter with station master on his way to reach Renupur, all

those create cinematic art of narration. The whole novel is of controlled or

controlling episodic stories of the novel creating mystery after mystery and

chapters by chapters the reader is held absorbed in the story and Ghosh makes

the reader feel like witnessing the events narrated. For all this the narrating

technique of portraying images or episodic stories of different characters or

through the depiction of stories through computer screen have been used by

Ghosh. Farley’s story line episode begins in chapter twenty one through

computer’s - Ava’s beginning to depict and ends as “Abruptly Ava began to

beep: rest, indecipherable unable to continue”(129). Thus, Ghosh employs




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narrative technique of ‘cuts’. Madhu Malti in her review article “The

Cinematic narrative technique in The Calcutta Chromosome” comments as:

The visual cuts the non-linear progression presented through a

meandering story-line narrated by four different speakers –

Murugan, Antar, Urmila and Sonali – from multifarious angles

thrusts the reader into a compelling confusion wherein he

remains unaware to the author’s guidance (The Novels of

Amitav Ghosh 272)

Apart from these narrative techniques Ghosh uses metaphors of ‘stormy

night and train coming in speed, while narrating Phulboni’s experience at the

Railway Station on the way to Renupur and his journey creates the effects of

mystery, fear, and possible death as Phulboni is sure of not coming any train at

the time and Phulboni’s fear calling for Masterji, Station Master and searching

for his gun creates the mystery. Simultaneously the stories narrated by Urmila

and Sonalindi as well as stories projected by Antar’s computer create visual

effects and deepening of mystery. A. G. Khan, in his review article, “The

Calcutta Chromosome: a Counter Science” rightly comments that “Ghosh uses

the technique of puppet master. His characters are made to appear/ disappear,

rise/fall as a part of narrative technique. There is never a dull moment. The

suspense of the quest is never diluted” (The Fiction of Amitav Ghosh 186).

Thus, Ghosh uses time and place shift to provide a new dimension

to the novel which develops beyond the stream of consciousness technique

and takes the reader in the lives of many characters. In The Calcutta




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Chromosome Ghosh presents a spectral journey of mystery by presenting

events and episodes in shift of time and place various chapters end abruptly

cutting or halting the story creating mystery as in detective or mystery film

story. Madhu Malti Adhikari while concluding her review article “Telling and

Showing: the Cinematic Narrative Technique in The Calcutta Chromosome”

comments, about Ghosh’s narrative technique as:

But Amitav Ghosh accomplishes the near impossible by the

artistry of audio-visual technique. The most significant reason

for employing this method is to give credibility to our world

that contains the voices of logic and illogic, matter and anti-

mater, science and anti-science. Ghosh is determined to

establish that truth is stranger than fiction. It is not difficult

to assert confidently that not a lure of an affection but a

genuine artistic need had motivated Ghosh to opt for the

cinematic narrative technique in The Calcutta Chromosome

(The Novels of Amitav Ghosh 274)

In his novel The Calcutta Chromosome Ghosh employs polyphonic

method of narration. Antar, Murugan, Urmila Roy, and Sonali Das are the

major narrators. The computer, Ava which Murugan uses to perform his ‘At

home’ job for the International Water Council at New York also gives most of

the information necessary for the development of the novel and hence can be

considered as one of the narrators. A difference can be denoted in the narrative

style of Ava and other human narrators. While the language of the human




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narrators is noted by their own inflections and accents, the language of the

computer is flat and uninflectional, typical of machine.

The plot of the novel extends more than a century. It begins in the

twenty-first century and through flashback moves to the nineteenth and

twentieth centuries. Ghosh imagines a global fraternity in the novel by

covering a vast geographical area- India, Egypt, and New York. He moves

easily in the spatio-temporal realm by making use of the Bakhtinian construct

of chronotope. A non- linear form of narration is followed in the novel. The

third person omniscient narration is avoided; on the contrary, the story sieves

through the perspectives of different narrators. The character is not

subordinated to the narrator but both of them are given equal importance.

In the beginning of the twenty-first century, Antar, a marginalized

Egyptian computer clerk makes mistakes on the ID card of L. Murugan on

his computer screen. Murugan, his former colleague was reported to have

disappeared from the Life Watch on August 20th, the Mosquito Day in 1995.

Nobody knew what happened to him afterwards. Everyone considered his

disappearance as an irreparable loss and later his death was referred to as a

euphemism for suicide. Antar, confident of his assumption that cyber

technology might help him across to clarify his doubts related to the

whereabouts of Murugan, decides to make the full use of cyber technology.

Years back, when his friend and colleague disappeared from the Life Watch,

Antar had fed into the computer a message: “Subject missing since August 21,

1995”( The Calcutta Chromosome 116), “last seen Calcutta, India”(116). The




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flash of the ID card on the computer screen seemed to be an answer to this

query. Antar moved over to Ava’s key board and fed the name of L.Murugan

into it along with a search command. Within minutes the computer Ava

investigated on its screen whatever he was searching for.

The information that Antar comes from his supercomputer, constitutes

a major part of the novel. The web, the cultural symbol of the technologically

advancing modern world becomes the global connector and enables Antar to

trace Murugan right from the time he started his research and follow him

closely through every labyrinth of Calcutta. The data that Murugan has

collected in the course of his research are supplied into the computer in the

form of newspaper clippings, letters, and notices. A substantial contribution

for proving Murugan’s hypothesis has been given by Ava. Ava assumes the

role of the narrator of Farley’s story. Farley’s early life, the background of his

research, his confrontation with the counter science team etc. are fed into the

computer by Murugan and Ava investigates the same. Antar can see Murugan

on its screen and hear his narration.

Murugan`s assertion is that Ronald Ross bagged the Nobel Prize for his

discovery of the malarial parasite not because of his natural abilities and

intutive observation as a scientist, illiterate Indian assistants were in the

background helping him to move the discovery towards the directions they

wanted. Murugan came to know about this in the course of his research from a

letter Elijah Farley, the American missionary doctor wrote to Eugene Opie, his

colleague. Eugene Opie`s letter to Farley was an inspiration for him to




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research upon Dr. Alphonso Laveran`s theory of malaria research. Farley

decided to do his experiments applicable to the research from

Dr.Cunningham’s laboratory in Calcutta.

From Antar`s computer cabin at New York in the 21st century, Ghosh,

through flashback, moves to the 20th century to make Antar recollect his

meeting with his colleague Murugan at the Thai Restaurant. He moves further

back to the 19th century to furnish the details of a very important letter

Dr. Farley written to Dr.Eugene Opie. The narration becomes non- linear and

chronotopic by the easy to and fro movement in space and time. Including

diverse genres within a text is a common practice of postcolonial writers. From

the letter written by Dr. Farley, Murugan learns that some bizarre events were

taking place in Dr.Cunningham`s laboratory.

Though Dr.Cunningham gives a warm welcome to Farley, he feels

uneasy in the laboratory to see a saree-clad sweeper-woman and a young bearer

boy observing him minutely and silently. To assert the fact that they are not

important and down trodden slum dwellers, Ghosh doesn’t furnish us with their

names at first. Farley learned from Dr. Cunningham that the sweeper woman

was Mangala from Sealdah. At Renupur Railway station in Sealdah, one could

see people who look for a job and a shelter. She was one such lady.

Lutchman, her assistant was brought by her from the same place.

As Dr. Cunningham had to take leave to go to Assam, he assigned

responsibility to his assistant Lutchman to provide Dr. Farley with all the

facilities needed for the experiment, like slides and other equipments. Farley




216

could know that in the absence of Dr. Cunningham, some weird and secret

rituals and chantings were taking place in an outhouse near the laboratory. He

secretly noticed a great deal of activity taking place in a nearby small room too.

Headed by Mangala, as though enthroned, were some dozen people in various

attitudes of supplication clustered around her feet. Two or three of them were

in the last stage of syphilis. By her side were several bamboo cages containing

pigeons shivering evidently near death. He saw that the bearer-boy, with an

adept hand is taking clean slides to the anteroom whispering something in

Mangala`s ears. At this, Mangala muttered a prayer, took a scalpel, and

beheaded the dying pigeon. Then she smeared the slides across the severed

neck and handed them to the assistant. He gave the slides to Farley and asked

him to examine them and said, “May be you will at last achieve success in your

quest” (The Calcutta Chromosome 128).

In this novel the words predict the future. Farley was able to see

through the microscope, movement of the amoeboid forms moving slowly

across the glassy surface. He saw hundreds of Laveran`s rods, tiny cylindrical

things with their pointed penetrating heads piercing the bloody miasma.

Laveran’s theory was proved beyond doubt. Farley`s excitement knew no

bounds. He saw a row of faces watching him curiously and Mangala staring at

him smiling to herself. “Tell him, the woman said with a mocking smile; tell

him that what he sees is the creature’s member entering the body of its mate”

(The Calcutta Chromosome 128).




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Though the discovery was made, Mangala and Lutchman were not

ready to allow him to go to the world with their rare secret knowledge.

Lutchman in a cunning way takes him to the Renupur railway station, where in

mysterious circumstances Farley disappear into oblivion. Before his

disappearance, Farley recorded the events he witnessed at the Cunningham`s

laboratory in a letter to Eugene Opie, which Murugan searches out from a

library during his research. But when he went to the library to have a second

reading of the letter it had mysteriously disappeared. The information that

Murugan gives to Urmila, his narratee is a reconstruction of the letter from his

own memory. As these informations were fed into the computer, Antar could

access them through Ava. In the midst of providing information, the computer

produces a beeping sound, showing on its screen- “Rest indecipherable, unable

to continue…’ (The Calcutta Chromosome 129). The information on the

computer screen is given in the typical computer terminology with its flat,

inflectional sentences. Apart from human narrators, computer too does the

work of the narrator, which remains unique in Ghosh’s polyphonic novels.

Urmila, the important narrator of the novel, whom Murugan met by

mere coincidence during his fieldwork in Calcutta was able to provide

Murugan with many relevant details to connect the missing links in his

research. When Murugan explained to Urmila that the name of the mysterious

boy known as Lutchman, who played a prominent role in the counter science

movement was also known by the name Lakhan. Many of the earlier stories

that she had heard came to her memory. She had special interest in Lakhan




218

because she wanted to write an article on Phulbhoni’s Lakhan Stories. While

Urmila was searching for more details, her friend and colleague Sonali Das told

her the experience of the famous writer Phulboni at Renupur railway station

which was believed to be a haunted place and how the ghost of Lakhan

mysteriously controlled him. The terrible and chilling experience of Phulboni

at the railway station forms the crux of the story. Urmila described this story to

Murugan hoping that it might help him in his research. Sonali, who narrated

the story to Urmila had got it from her mother through oral narration. Her

mother was the mistress of Phulboni, the writer, and once in illness of

drunkenness he related the story to his mistress and thus broke the rule of the

counter science movement. Secrecy was the religion of counter science and the

punishment for those who break the rule would be nothing less than death.

The Puranic mode of storytelling and the oral narrative methods are used by

Ghosh to make the novel a genuine polyphony of fully valid voices.

Apart from this main story line, many other narrative elements are

woven into the body of the novel. Phulboni’s chilling experience at the

Renupur railway station and his Lakhan stories, Urmila’s life as a working

woman and the role allotted to her in the counter science movement,

Murugan’s search for truth, Sonali, the film actress and her unfulfilled

love affair with Romen Halder are some of the central points around which

the narratives are woven. Mrs. Aratounian as the reincarnated Mangala,

Romen Halder as the reborn Lakhan;the trio of Murugan, Urmila, and

Sonali ; again the trio of Antar, Tara, and Maria are all independent




219

characters in the novel but they are interconnected chromosomally and

knowledge is transmitted from one person to the other through interpersonal

transference or transmigration of soul .

The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh presents history as the reconstructed

history of Burma, British of colonial times and the invasion of British on

peacefully living of Burma and the dangers of Second World War, all these

issues mingled with the epic story of love and struggle for existence of middle

class families of hybrid culture spread over Burma, East India, and Malaysia.

The novel covers the period of 1885 to 1995. The novel portrays the impact of

the colonial encounter on the lives of people who suffered a lot even struggled

to live. As in earlier novels Ghosh presents and explores validities of

boundaries weaving history into fiction.

The novel is written in third person narrative technique covering a

life span of family of three generation. The fictional characters like Rajkumar,

Dolly, Saya John, Uma Dey reflect their lives in the historical events and

impact of colonial rule of British. Santosh Gupta in his review article

“Looking into history: Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace” comments:

The novel builds up many little narratives to present the many

voices inside the countries, Burma and India during the one

hundred years of political struggle in the subcontinent. It goes

into the complex relationship of interactions and conflicts

between Indians and Burmese, presenting along with it the

emergence of a more concrete self-consciousness among different




220

sections of people. (Indian Writing in English: The Last Decade

244)

In The Glass Palace, Ghosh’s art of narration is not adopted to just

one narrative technique. The reading of The Glass Palace portrays different

narrative techniques adopted by the author. The novelist, uses third person

narration in The Glass Palace. Ghosh uses the flashback technique to describe

the inner aspect of personality of the characters Rajkumar in The Glass Palace

is highly attracted by Dolly and speaks repeatedly the name ‘Dolly’ which is

suggestive of Rajkumar’s love at first sight to Dolly. Ghosh writes: “‘Dolly’

repeated Rajkumar, Dolly he could think nothing else to say, or as much worth

saying. So he said the name again louder and louder, until he was shouting

‘Dolly Dolly’.” (The Glass Palace 35) Thus, Ghosh narrates the love (at first

sight) between Rajkumar and Dolly. Rajkumar’s utterance “I will see you

again.”(36) shows Rajkumar assertion to seek Dolly. And he did seek Dolly.

Sometimes Ghosh uses the dialogue and metaphor to narrate the incident.

For instance, Ghosh describes the dialogue of Dolly and Rajkumar at the

seashore about Rajkumar’s proposal to marry Dolly. Here Ghosh writes:

“Suddenly the glowing tip disintegrated and shower of sparks came floating

down. It was as through fireworks were raining down from the heaven?” (The

Glass Palace 169). Here the metaphor “fireworks… from heaven” is

suggestive of Dolly’s permission to marry Rajkumar.

The Glass Palace is a lengthy book because the narrative presence

three generations, and many stories are woven together. The scope of the




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novel is plentiful in many geographical places with space and distance and time

of about one hundred years. Ghosh’s narrative technique points out minor

details that introduce the character and the narrative is made with a realistic

effect. For example, Ghosh narrates the outcry of Macho as under:

What do you think – I have jobs under my armpits, to pluck

out and hand to you? Last week a boy ran away with two of my

pots. Who is to tell me you won’t do the same? And so on.

Rajkumar understood that this outburst was not aimed directly at

him, that it had none to do with the dust, the splattering oil and

the price of the vegetable than with his own presence or with

anything he had said. (The Glass Palace 6)

Such type of narratives supplemented by the use of language shows the

inner qualities of Macho who soon gives the job to Rajkumar – an orphan boy

of eleven year, stranded in Mandalaya from where the novel begins.

There are many stories within the stories of The Glass Palace. The

narrative reveals the lives of Rajkumar, Uma Dey, Saya John, and Dolly. All

characters are interconnected. Simultaneously the novelist portrays the British

invasion on Burma to annex Burma to British empire and second world war.

The king and queen and the Royal Family exiled to Ratnagiri in Maharashtra

where the Bengali collector and his wife Uma Dey are expected to take care of

them. Ghosh uses the narrative technique of ‘Shifts’ – shift from one story to

another and so on. Jayita Sengupta in her review article – “Ghosh’s The Glass




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Palace through Post-colonial Lens’, about the narrative technique adopted by

Ghosh as:

The writer’s device which is central to the artistic deployment

of his material in the novel is the metaphor of the camera.

Leitmotifs of mirrors, lenses, and binoculars are scattered

throughout the text. The artist’s eye reflects, bears, witness

to the historical events as a kind of photomontage, a series of

snapshots over time whose details are filled in. (The Quest 26)

One would not agree with the opinion of Jayita Sengupta as the story

line is extended to three generation over the time of hundred years. The

narrative in the novel brings epic effects especially love and marriage of the

characters. Ghosh projects the travel motifs in the novel. Ghosh’s characters

move and cross boundaries either on account of taking survival chances due to

Second World War or for seeking better economic prospects as Ghosh projects

the overwhelming effects of the Second World War – Japanese invaded on

British to occupies Burma. Ghosh’s art of narration to reveal the exodus of the

people leaving Rangoon is a better piece of his art of narration. Ghosh narrates

the incidents as:

Since the start of Indian exodus, the territory had been mapped

by a network of official recognized evacuation trails: there were

‘white’ routes and ‘black’ routes, the former being shorter and

less heavily used, several hundred thousand people had already

tramped through this wilderness. Great numbers of refugees




223

were still arriving every day. To the south the Japanese army

was still advancing and there was no turning back. (468)

Thus, Ghosh describes the events and trapped conditions of Indian

exodus with clarity in the narratives. Ghosh merges history and fiction in his

narratives. Meenakshi Mukherjee comments:

Each of Amitav Ghosh’s Books, except ‘countdown’, invariably

focuses on themes in history and connection across geography

that have seldom been explored before and does so with

imagination supported by archival research, his narrative

inventiveness matched by his luminous prose (Indian Review

of Books 152)

Ghosh presents history and fiction in the novel The Glass Palace

through his creative skill and researched materials embodied in the novel.

The narrative does not expose bare outlines of history but simultaneously

makes the history blended with the epic story in such a fashion and narrative

technique that reader is absorbed in the novel. Jayita Sengupta comments, in

this regards as:

Ghosh’s artistic device as mentioned earlier is the photo montage

technique of narration. He shifts the readers’ attention from one

personal subject to another. The writer’s intention in this novel is

to enable his readers to visualize many histories which entwine

with the main strand of the story line covering the broad sweep of




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historical change over three countries from the end of the 19th

century to the present. (The Quest 27)

In The Glass Palace, Raj Kumar’s granddaughter, Jaya’s son is the

main narrator of the story and he interlinks many sub-narratives with different

characters to make it a complete whole. The childhood memory of the

fascinating, perplexing, and the most tender sight that he has ever witnessed in

his life of the interlocked dentures of his great aunt Uma and his great

grandfather Rajkumar in Uma’s bed persisted in his memory for a long time.

While he grew up into maturity, his intense longing to know more about the

nature of the relationship between Uma, “a benevolent benefactress” (The

Glass Palace 545) and his great grandfather Rajkumar “a near destitute

refugee” (The Glass Palace 545) augmented in him. Hence he takes the

decision to trace out the history of their family and write down their chronicle

in the form of a novel. The novel thus written, includes the great historical

events beginning with the British annexation of Burma to the British India in

November 1885 till the Burmese struggle for democracy under the leadership

of their pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and the attempts of the Military

Junta to suppress the struggle by keeping Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest

in 1996. The records of these historical events are mingled with struggle for

survival of human beings caught up in the vortex of these great events. The

family chronicle of the Rahas with Rajkumar at its head and the history of

three generations of his family are foregrounded in The Glass Palace.

The narrator was able to understand that Rajkumar’s struggle with life




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began as an orphan. When he was only eleven years old he came off from

Chittagong with his mother to escape from a killer fever. But on the way he

lost his mother, his only hope and pillar of his life. Having lost his father and

his brothers even earlier, Rajkumar’s orphanhood became complete with the

death of his mother. Her parting words, “Stay alive, Beche Thako. Rajkumar,

live my Prince hold on to your life” (The Glass Palace 14) inspired him to

move on with confidence. The climb of Rajkumar from the ‘rag-clad kalaa’ to

the heights of glory and his total pauperization during the last stages of his life

forms the core of the novel.

There are many other narratives intricately interwoven into the texture

of the novel making use of innovative narrative techniques like polyphony and

heteroglossia. The excessive freedom allowed to characters makes it a

polyphonic novel. The variety of linguistics registers that the characters used

in the novel allows heteroglossia to occupy a prominent role. The language

that Rajkumar uses during his childhood days of orphanhood is quite different

from the utterances of adult Rajkumar. He showed great maturity when he was

only a child of eleven and he approached a half- Indian and half- Burmese

food-stall owner for a job. Though annoyed at first, Ma Cho was good at heart.

Who are your parents? Asked Ma Cho. ‘I don’t have any. They

died.’ Said Rajkumar. His short and pithy answer was capable of

rousing sympathy in Ma Cho and nhe agreed to work in her food

stall for food and shelter. Gradually ties between them

strengthened and Rajkumar was able to elicit




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many interesting details about the Glass Palace of Burma from

her. In the midst of their conversation Ma Cho would tell

Rajkumar: ‘Now you get back to work or I‘ll fry your black

face in hot oil…( The Glass Palace 10)

It is Ma cho who holds power and her utterances reflect the tendency

of the powerful to control their subordinates. Her words are illustrative of the

dominance over her interlocutor – Rajkumar, and he is willing to be subsumed

as he has no other way open before him. Her language is typical of the

working class culture. Emboldened by poverty and orphanhood, he adapts

himself to the changed situation and becomes an efficient teak trader. An agent

to the West, he engages himself in transporting indentured labourers to work in

the plantations. Being a sub-contractor in teak trade he emulated the colonizer

in logging incessantly from teak forests and utilized elephants for pulling logs.

Ecological degradation due to excessive exploitation of nature is underscored

by Ghosh when he refers to the deceptive ways in which Rajkumar made

money through deforestation. Ashcroft observes “Ecological imperialism

radically altered the entire ecology of the invaded lands in ways that

necessarily disadvantaged indigenous people and annihilated or endangered the

native fauna and flora on which their cultures and their very lives depended”

(Key Concepts on Postcolonial Studies 76).

During the initial stages of his stay in the British occupied Burma,

Rajkumar wanted to offer resistance to the Empire but soon he finds it curbed

under the apprenticeship of the opportunist and business man Saya John and he




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learns the tactics of survival in the colonized space. A displaced and alienated

human being has no other choice but to adapt himself to the changed situation.

Like Saya John, his benefactor, he too becomes a mimic man, dresses like a

Saheb and begins speaking the colonizer’s language which makes him appear

like an abnormal man. The grown up Rajkumar, at the height of his prosperity

reaches Ratnagiri, where the Burmese royal family was deported, to propose to

the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen in his life – Miss. Dolly Sein, the

ten year old palace attendant whom he had met twenty years ago.

The actual scene of the deportation of the royal family is poignantly

etched in the novel through the perspective of the child Rajkumar. The readers

are sent to the place where the crucial scene was enacted and are allowed to

witness the real situation. The greed with which the Burmese crowd grabs the

precious things from that unguarded Palace highlights the natural human

selfishness to possess valuable things for themselves, disregarding the grievous

condition of their country when it slipped off into the hands of the British

government: “Everywhere people were intently at work, men and women,

armed with axes and das; they were hacking at gem-studded Ook offering

boxes; digging patterned gemstones from the marble floor; using fish-hooks to

pry the ivory inlays from the sadaik chests” (The Glass Palace 33).

By projecting this kind of a symbolic action Amitav Ghosh is trying to

set the tone of the novel. As Elleke Boehmer argues, “the main intention of the

colonizers was to exploit the natural resources and govern the indigenous

inhabitants of colonized land” (Beginning Postcolonialism). Colonialism was a




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lucrative commercial operation bringing wealth and riches to the Western

nations through the economic exploitation of the colonized countries. It was

with this motivating force that Burma was annexed and made into a province of

British India.

An officer holding his sheathed sword in front of him is seen ordering

the Queen to leave the cabin, to go down the stairs into the palace. The

powerful/powerless binary is seen in the relationship between the Queen of

Burma and the Burmese mob. Before the British annexation, the doors of the

Burmese palace were shut off from the public; they had no right to enter the

palace to redress their grievances. But from the pedestal of glory the fall of the

Burmese royal family is so sudden that the Queen cannot control herself:

‘Are we prisoners then? ’The queen’s face was twisted with fury.

‘Who has sent you here?’ ‘Our orders came from Taingda

Mingyi,’ the officer said. ‘For your safety Mebya.’ ‘Our

safety?’ (23)

But the Burmese Queen cannot be safe when the whole country has

become unsafe in the hands of the Empire. The British imperialists did not

waste any time in destroying the royal family from their glorious position and

laying siege to the palace of Mandalay. The Indian soldiers ‘obediently’ served

the British in the annexation. The guard-post was full of soldiers and they were

herding the girls towards the steps:




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Dolly glanced down: the flight of stairs was very steep. Her

head began to spin. ‘I can’t,’ she cried. ‘I can’t’. (The Glass

Palace 17)

The fictional narrator comments upon the situation:

‘She would fall she knew it. The princess was too heavy for

her; the stairs were too high; she would need a free hand

to keep her balance’ (The Glass Palace 23)

A soldier was prompting her with the cold hilt of his sword compelling

her to move quickly. The cruelty of the Indian soldiers working in the British

army is highlighted here. The eventful day was memorable for Rajkumar, a

kalaa from across the sea as he met the palace attendant Dolly on that day:

‘What is your name?’ Rajkumar said.

She whispered a couple of inaudible syllables.

‘Doh-lee?’

‘Dolly.’

‘Dolly,’ repeated Rajkumar. ‘Dolly’. (35)

Afterwards her face didn’t disappear from his mind. The above cited

instance, when sieved through the perspective of Rajkumar when he was only a

child, follows the style and register of a child. But when he tells in detail the

same event during his adulthood the cadence and register undergo considerable

change. What one hears is the matured voice of Rajkumar, the colonised

mimic man. Confidence and clarity mark his style of speech. The way he




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handles English language describes the degree of progress he has made in

communicating his ideas in the language of the colonizer.

The Collector at Ratnagiri, Rajkumar’s narratee is so wondered by

the gentlemanly qualities visible in him that he addresses him as Mr. Raha.

Homi Bhabha has described mimicry as the desire for a reformed recognizable

other, “as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite” (The

Location of Culture 89). Here Raha resembles the ‘mimic’ man visualized by

Bhabha. His complicity with the colonizer is conspicuous here. He responds

to the questions of the Collector in polished English:

‘Burma’, Mr. Raha, he said in his ironical way. ‘You have told us

very little about it. What took you there in the first place?’

‘Accident’, Rajkumar said shortly.

‘What kind of accident carries a man to another country?’

‘I was working on a boat and found myself stranded in Mandalay.

This was at the start of British invasion. The river was closed to

traffic.’

‘An eventful time’

‘A strange time, sir.’(142)

In the dialogue cited above no word seems to be superfluous, only

compact utterances befitting the situation. The metamorphosis of Rajkumar,

from the rag-clad kalaa into a colonized mimic man has been vividly portrayed

through the dialogue.




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In portraying the unparalleled beauty of Dolly, Ghosh resorts to

polyphony. Her beauty, when reflected through ‘multiple voices’ becomes

all the more enchanting. In Rajkumar’s version, she appeared to be beautiful

beyond belief, beyond comprehension. “She was l/ike the palace itself, a thing

of glass, inside which you could see everything your imagination was capable”

(144). The Collector’s wife, when she saw Dolly for the first time felt that

“Mss Sein was perhaps the loveliest woman she’d ever set her eyes on” (108).

The same view has been said repeatedly when the working class woman with

whom Rajkumar had an illicit relationship saw the photograph. She said to

Rajkumar, “She’s so beautiful, like a princess-what do you want to do with a

woman like me?” (236). The enforcement of an idea through multiple voices is

a strategy that Ghosh successfully makes use of in his novels.

In The Glass Palace conflicting ideologies are projected through the

portrayal of the Collector and his wife. The Collector, Beniprasad Dey and his

wife, Uma Dey represent the educated Indian elite during the period of

colonization. While Uma struggles against the British colonial aggression and

becomes the spearhead of Indian National Movement to struggle for the

liberation of India, her husband collaborates with the colonizer in bringing

under domination of the colonized. When the exiled royal family of Burma is

brought under his supervision, he can do something to improve their lot, but he

chooses to be a faithful servant of the Empire. Finally for a minor failure of his

duty to the Empire, he is summarily dismissed from the post of the Collector.

The only way left for the grief- stricken Collector is to commit suicide.




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Thus, from the critical examination of the Novels such as The Circle

of Reason , The Shadow Lines, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace,

and In An Antique Land, this chapter points out the distinctive narrative

strategies employed by the writer. In all these, novels he employs several

methods of narrative techniques and the idealogies accordingly suiting

to the theme and thesis of the novels.




chapter v narrative techniques -...

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