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The Indian-born novelist, journalist and professor, revisited familiar shores on the eve of the release of his latest title, The Hungry Tide. Chilling out with close friends and family in Goa, in between bouts of tennis and squash, he allowed voracious reader, Rahul Bose, rare glimpses into his muse and mind. Author, Amitav Ghosh in conversation with the actor-director
I first read Amitav Ghosh in 1993. I was producing a radio programme, Between The Lines, which explored the creative connection between books and music. I would read passages from one of my favourite books and play the music I thought captured the mood of the piece preceding it. Amitav's Circle Of Reason fascinated me. The gliding dance between different geographical spaces and the more personal stories couched inside was superbly controlled, gentle, funny and poignant - things I had felt most about all of Amitav's novels.
We met for the first time more than a year ago and since then our peripatetic lifestyles have, astonishingly, intersected more than once. It's always been fascinating talking to him, always been fun. This conversation took place in Goa where Amitav and his family were holidaying.
RAHUL BOSE: Clearly, there is an anthropological slant in the stuff that you write about. It comes from a scholarly perspective that not just anyone can have; yet there is so much in the micro so to speak - in relationships, in characters, that is so emotionally nuanced - this merging of the head and the heart…
AMITAV GHOSH: I found anthropology very interesting in many ways, especially because it allowed me to travel which has always been very fundamental to my work. But, I think I also found it (anthropology) very limiting. You can learn about things in anthropology, but people are absent…human beings, characters are absent, and that's why I was very drawn towards writing fiction, which is, and always has been, my first love. As soon as I finished my PhD, literally from the day I finished, I started writing fiction. For me, it's the most comprehensive form. You can put everything in it. It can contain anthropology, it can contain history, geography, ecology, you name it.
RB: The book is dedicated to Lila, your daughter. Any significance?
AG: Oh, this book had to be dedicated to Lila. I wanted to write about a young girl like her who comes to India yet cannot even speak the language. How does she communicate? What language does she find?
RB: The whole idea of how Fokir saves Piya…you didn't write it with a manipulative edge to it. It was…elliptical…and that shy indirectness of something that is so evocative…that's so tender, that's the killing part…
AG: As a writer, the best thing I can ever hear is that people have been moved by my book…moved either to tears or to laughter, I mean, that's so important, such a crucial part of what one does as a writer, so I'm really, really happy to hear that.
RB: This is a good time to ask you a question that I find inevitable. Why have none of your books been made into movies?
AG: Every now and again, people have been interested in making movies out of my books. (Laughs shyly.) Most directors have been drawn to The Shadow Lines. Aparna (Sen) wanted to make it at one point. Calcutta Chromosome is the other one...actually the option is out on that. An Italian filmmaker is working on it.
RB: Do you feel cinema has been an intrinsic part of your creative life?
AG: Cinema has been a very powerful influence on me, and I think it's not just on me but on my entire generation of writers…Satyajit Ray, I think more than almost any other artist. Ray profoundly influenced me. In some way what you're saying is absolutely right, you know, when I sit down to write I need to visualise, I need to be able to see in my mind what I'm writing about. I think that's perhaps what you're referring to.
RB: Last night you were talking about how writers were once at the centre of society and how their position has moved...
AG: The 20th century was the century of novels. Novelists were very much at the centre of a culture. A person like (Ernest) Hemingway so much defined American life in the way (Rabindranath) Tagore defined Indian life. But all that's really changed. Writers have slowly been displaced by the moving image - television, films, in the last 20-30 years.
Today, movies occupy the similar position that novels did earlier. I often notice when one is sitting to dinner with six writers you talk about books, but not everybody will have read the same books. But everybody will have seen the same movies and you'll have an argument or a debate will follow. Yet even though our culture thinks that movies have taken over, the fact is that's very far from being true. Movies themselves are often led by books, whether it's Harry Potter, or The English Patient….
[ Multifaceted Rahul Bose, who has written and directed the film, Everybody Says I'm Fine, pens a fortnightly column for the news magazine, Tehelka. A passionate rugby player, Bose's White Noise is due for release soon. He also works with the Mumbai-based NGO, Akshara and is on the advisory board of the New York-based NGO, Breakthrough.]
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When I sit down to write, I need to visualise, I need to be able to see in my mind what I'm writing about.
