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Dagobah Resident
In one of the anwers to a post entitled "Are the moderators or administrators ever shocked?"
I found the following quote by Laura:
"At this point in time, there is not much one can do to alleviate
the suffering of humanity other than to share knowledge, to help
others to stop being controlled by the shocks of horror that are
created just to put humans in that "deer in the headlights" state."
Amitav Ghosh's novels assist in this aim to share knowledge in a way that can be assimilated by the reader without "put(ing) humans in that 'deer in the headlights' state", while, at the same time, revealing much of the "suffering of humanity".
Although Ghosh's genre is fiction, the settings are based on historical incidents, some of which may never have been revealed to the average reader in any other way.
Ghosh themes are the destabilization caused by colonialism and globalization. In "The Hungry Tide" the additional theme of evironmentalism being used in the service of population control is introduced by a true incident that occurred in 1979 in the island of Morichjhapi.
Here is a quote that I found on the blog "The Hungry Corporation".
Life happened because I turned the pages~~Alberto Manguel
Sunday, October 10, 2004
The Hungry Corporation
"Amitav Ghosh remembers visiting the Sunderbans as a child; more
recently, he spent a long period in the mangrove islands of Bengal
researching The Hungry Tide. He met dolphin researchers, dusted off
the files on the massacre of refugees who were encroaching on Project
Tiger land in Morichjhapi and listened to old legends, tales of Bon Bibi
and Dakkhin Rai. In this quietly passionate essay, he argues against
a recent proposal to build a boutique floating hotel in the area:"
"The Sahara Parivar claims that it will open ‘virgin’ areas to tourists. But
the islands of the Sunderbans are not ‘virgin’ in any sense. The Indian part
of the Sunderbans supports a population of close to four million people—equivalent
to the entire population of New Zealand. The Sunderbans are an
archipelago of islands, large and small. Many, if not most of the islands,
have been populated at some time or the other. In fact, several islands were
forcibly depopulated in order to make room for Project Tiger."
"In 1979, the Left Front government evicted tens of thousands of
refugee settlers, mainly Dalits, from the island of Morichjhapi. The cost
in lives is still unaccounted, but it is likely that thousands were killed.
The eviction was justified on ecological grounds: the authorities claimed that the
island of Morichjhapi had to be preserved as a forest reserve. It is scarcely
conceivable that a government run by the same Left Front is now thinking of
handing over a substantial part of the Sunderbans to an industrial house
like the Sahara Parivar. It runs contrary to every tenet of the Front’s
professed ideology. The Sahara Parivar’s project would turn large stretches
of this very forest, soaked in the blood of evicted refugees, into a playground for the
affluent."
Because the novel is a fictional account, we experience the event through the perspectives of the characters who are affected by it. The characters are skillfully portrayed, and as I was reading it, I couldn't help but analyze each of whom I consider to be the three major characters in terms of the Work.
Kanii Dutt, a businessman who started a successful company providing translators for foreigners, seems to be a man who has developed his intellectual center and his personality at the cost of his essence.
Fokir, a fisherman, is just the opposite. His essence seems highly developed. He has developed his moving center to such an extent that he seems to be so at one with his environment that there seems no separation between him and it. But since his intellectual center has not been developed, and he seems ill at ease outside of nature, as he does not seem to have a strong enough personality to cope with the modern world.
Piya Roy is a marine biologist who seems to be a synthesis of the other two characters. The nature of her work compells her to spend much time alone in nature, but she is also at home in the scientific community. She seems to have developed both essence and personality.
Each of these three characters are compelling and I found myself caring about them and the minor characters who are also skillfully represented.
But when I finished the book, I was left with the image of what happened at Morichjhapi. It sent me back to The Adventure Series to read about Game Theory again especially when I read in the above quote that "The Sahara Parivar’s project would turn large stretches of this very forest, soaked in the blood of evicted refugees, into a playground for the affluent."
I found the following quote by Laura:
"At this point in time, there is not much one can do to alleviate
the suffering of humanity other than to share knowledge, to help
others to stop being controlled by the shocks of horror that are
created just to put humans in that "deer in the headlights" state."
Amitav Ghosh's novels assist in this aim to share knowledge in a way that can be assimilated by the reader without "put(ing) humans in that 'deer in the headlights' state", while, at the same time, revealing much of the "suffering of humanity".
Although Ghosh's genre is fiction, the settings are based on historical incidents, some of which may never have been revealed to the average reader in any other way.
Ghosh themes are the destabilization caused by colonialism and globalization. In "The Hungry Tide" the additional theme of evironmentalism being used in the service of population control is introduced by a true incident that occurred in 1979 in the island of Morichjhapi.
Here is a quote that I found on the blog "The Hungry Corporation".
Life happened because I turned the pages~~Alberto Manguel
Sunday, October 10, 2004
The Hungry Corporation
"Amitav Ghosh remembers visiting the Sunderbans as a child; more
recently, he spent a long period in the mangrove islands of Bengal
researching The Hungry Tide. He met dolphin researchers, dusted off
the files on the massacre of refugees who were encroaching on Project
Tiger land in Morichjhapi and listened to old legends, tales of Bon Bibi
and Dakkhin Rai. In this quietly passionate essay, he argues against
a recent proposal to build a boutique floating hotel in the area:"
"The Sahara Parivar claims that it will open ‘virgin’ areas to tourists. But
the islands of the Sunderbans are not ‘virgin’ in any sense. The Indian part
of the Sunderbans supports a population of close to four million people—equivalent
to the entire population of New Zealand. The Sunderbans are an
archipelago of islands, large and small. Many, if not most of the islands,
have been populated at some time or the other. In fact, several islands were
forcibly depopulated in order to make room for Project Tiger."
"In 1979, the Left Front government evicted tens of thousands of
refugee settlers, mainly Dalits, from the island of Morichjhapi. The cost
in lives is still unaccounted, but it is likely that thousands were killed.
The eviction was justified on ecological grounds: the authorities claimed that the
island of Morichjhapi had to be preserved as a forest reserve. It is scarcely
conceivable that a government run by the same Left Front is now thinking of
handing over a substantial part of the Sunderbans to an industrial house
like the Sahara Parivar. It runs contrary to every tenet of the Front’s
professed ideology. The Sahara Parivar’s project would turn large stretches
of this very forest, soaked in the blood of evicted refugees, into a playground for the
affluent."
Because the novel is a fictional account, we experience the event through the perspectives of the characters who are affected by it. The characters are skillfully portrayed, and as I was reading it, I couldn't help but analyze each of whom I consider to be the three major characters in terms of the Work.
Kanii Dutt, a businessman who started a successful company providing translators for foreigners, seems to be a man who has developed his intellectual center and his personality at the cost of his essence.
Fokir, a fisherman, is just the opposite. His essence seems highly developed. He has developed his moving center to such an extent that he seems to be so at one with his environment that there seems no separation between him and it. But since his intellectual center has not been developed, and he seems ill at ease outside of nature, as he does not seem to have a strong enough personality to cope with the modern world.
Piya Roy is a marine biologist who seems to be a synthesis of the other two characters. The nature of her work compells her to spend much time alone in nature, but she is also at home in the scientific community. She seems to have developed both essence and personality.
Each of these three characters are compelling and I found myself caring about them and the minor characters who are also skillfully represented.
But when I finished the book, I was left with the image of what happened at Morichjhapi. It sent me back to The Adventure Series to read about Game Theory again especially when I read in the above quote that "The Sahara Parivar’s project would turn large stretches of this very forest, soaked in the blood of evicted refugees, into a playground for the affluent."
