AMITAV GHOSH IN BANGALORE

Unfortunately, I have read only one novel of Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide. He’s on my must-read list, but in spite of—or rather because ofPratibha Umashankar-Nadigerits high priority marking, I have not got around to reading him. His books belong to the category of books you want to read when you feel that inner stillness that can absorb meaning (read: concentrate). 

Ghosh descended on Bangalore for a reading of Flood of Fire, the third novel in the Ibis trilogy. The publicity emails mentioned that the author will be in conversation with a certain Rohan Murthy. (I did not make the connection.) Ghosh is, well, phenomenal so I was wondering about this unknown-to-me Bangalore intellectual who will be in a tete a tete with the powerhouse writer. At the venue, Ghosh with his shock of silver hair and black rimmed frames looked every bit the big-time author. His interviewer was suitably bespectacled alright, but sans the impressive frost in the hair and sagacious lines on the visage.   

Okay, so Rohan Murthy is Narayn Murthy's son who is doing some brilliant work in publishing with the Murthy Foundation. But to be honest, I was disappointed by the choice. I mean, how seriously can you take someone who announces in an Indo-American twang that since his notes are on his phone, the audience shouldn't misconstrue his referring to them as texting! And then he grandly announces that the said questionnaire has been put together by inputs from friends who are academicians.  He makes it a point to say that he has landed in Bangalore this morning from Boston, and makes some purportedly casual references to Ivy League: beware; these academician friends are not just academics but firang academics. I guess, we’re supposed to be suitably impressed. 

Here is one question from "a friend and gender studies professor", from I think, it was Cornell. The question: Ghosh's earlier work in the Iblis trilogy had strong women characters but his later work has only men. How does he explain this breach? Ghosh replied: he loves having strong women character but when his book is set in a garrison town, where there are no women, it was quite difficult to write in an impressive female protagonist. 

Then comes one where I think Ghosh must have inwardly rolled his eyes. The question was something like how as a novelist writing about historical events he handles a situation when he runs out of research material. Does he start inventing? Ghosh replied that his books are not historical works but stories springing from his imagination – otherwise it would not be fiction.

Ghosh talked about his role as a novelist. He said that though his books are based in historical times and he loves doing research; but at the end of the writing day, he’s not a military or trade historian. True, he pegs his novels around real events, people, and places. But what he loves is creating characters (their motivations and emotions, relationship with other principal players); and what the weather was like, or was there a festive occasion on that day. All this comes from his imagination – history is purely the catalyst.

Someone in the audience asked him that what were the real events and what were the created ones in his books. Cheekily, Ghosh remarked, that the most unlikely ones were quite the real ones.

In his intro talk, he had shared slides of what a travelling garrison would have looked like. In the long line of trooping soldiers, accompanied by cooks, book-keepers, drummers, dhobis, livestock, et al stood out a pert black dog. I never thought any one had even noticed this solitary mongrel. But someone in the audience had and was curious to know what was the mutt's role?! That took Ghosh by surprise. (He said it probably was a hunting dog as the soldiers often stopped for hunting). The limelight grabbed by the sketched dog must have left the audience vaguely baffled (most of them), indifferent (some), and stupidly pleased (me).

BISCUIT WALKS

At the appointed hour--seasonal in nature--Sando, my dog, bays out for his daily walk. Or what my mother calls his "newspaper reading time"  (It seems that dogs need their walk not only as a physical exercise, but as a social one too: where they sniff around to learn what fellow four-legged ones in the area were up to.)

Sando, unfortunately, unlike the late Kalu, is not a popular dog. We cannot pass by most streets and houses without being greeted by angry barks. And in some lanes, dogs would actually chase us! I think Sando was the problem (he growls at the hostile ones and turns up his nose on the friendly ones). Finding enemy-less routes was not easy-- we were experiencing a route crisis.

Until biscuits happened.

I did the old-fashioned thing of bribing our way -- literally -- for this unsocial dog. And now he was the new Mr Popular. Well, not exactly, but at least his sight was welcomed by the biscuit-bought dogs.

A particular pack of three, were his most loyal watchers. Irrespective of who (my parents or brothers) walked Sando, for these three mutts he was the highlight of the day. They enacted a small drama around him everyday: dancing in circles, sniffing him up, yelping excitedly, and of course, gobbling up the "bribe."

One day, I noticed a pair of tiny tots from a construction site nearby following this road show. I tentatively gave the kids a pack of biscuits, and the next day they reappeared. Sando had new followers.

Now the neighbourhood's most detested dog has a guaranteed fan following of three dogs and two tots.