When I finished reading the book “The Hungry Tide”, it was around 1 am in the night. I just kept down the book and hardly felt like moving from the chair where I was sitting. I realized that while going through the last few pages, I was actually into the story. I could feel the rage of the tide and I was with Piya and Fokir(two of the central characters in the book). So I was also exhausted, like they were in the story. I was gasping for breath under the water with them and I was feeling the pain of Piya and Fokir.
When we were young, we heard that Abanindranath Thakur "Chobi likhten"(meaning “he used to write pictures”). After reading The Hungry Tide, I sincerely felt that Amitava Ghosh has achieved nothing less than that through this book.
It is rather astonishing that Amitava Ghosh, coming from a particular background has been able to draw the characters of Piya, Kanai, Fokir and Nilima – so much realistically that you tend to feel that these are real people who exist.
Kanai, the Delhi based successful Bengali businessman, sophisticated and suave is one that caught my imaginations. With all his classy and sophisticated characteristics, when confronted with fear and a losing challenge in the hands of an impoverished Fokir, suddenly an outburst of unprintable words from his mouth makes the whole atmosphere so striking and amazingly believable.
On the other hand, the character of Fokir is a revelation. Brought up in a poorest of poor surrounding, his intelligence, perceptibility and strength are bound to catch the reader’s attention. It is anybody’s guess, whether it was love or a chivalrous man’s instinct of protecting a woman when in dire problems. Whatever it was, the subtle way in which Ghosh put it on the papers will make it even more intriguing.
I have been to the Sunderbans a few years back and the memories I have are quite vivid. When I was reading the book, I could visualize the unique landscapes of the archipelago and could only appreciate from the bottom of my heart for what a fantastic description that Amitava Ghosh has given. I have a few photographs of Sunderbans which I was showing to my wife(she first read the book and recommended to me). I could very well understand that she had a much better picture of Sunderban from the book rather than my photographs. Such is the power of Ghosh’s descriptions. This book should be a classic in its own rights. And with that, the expectation from Amitava Ghosh has grown manifold. I recently heard that he has given his permission to make a film on this book. I hope it lives up to the expectations. But to keep my expectations from the film under control, I just remembered a nice quotation which I saw in one of the CrossWords book Store – “Never judge a book by its film”.
To sum it up – it is a must read for any book lover. If you haven’t read it, you are missing something in life.
Thanks a lot Amitava Ghosh.