Meeting Amitabh Ghosh

Don't doubt reality..it's him

For decades I didn’t read any serious literature, for that matter I hardly read any literature. Most English and Bengali classics I finished by then (that was what I thought), encountered only thrillers near at hand and got disenchanted. I sampled the state-of-art Bengali literature religiously for a few years by going through the leading Bengali literary magazines. Ultimately I had to give up – no more, no more. The times must have changed terribly for the worse when no further worthwhile literature is being written anymore – I concluded.

Many years later by sheer chance I chanced upon The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh. I had heard Amitav’s name as a renowned writer, that’s all. Casually I started reading again after a long long time. The beginning felt a little dull, but I carried on. At that moment I didn’t have any other compulsions. Slowly the storyline tightened up, the small chapters, interleaved events gradually hastened on. On a tightly woven path events flowed faster and faster towards a thundering end. After finishing the book, I got back the taste for literature again.

That was the role of Amitav on my reading life. Subsequently, I read a few of his other books and as usual categorized and classified them in my own way. I liked his books. Then one fine morning my 16 year old son excitedly showed me a small booklet. It was an extract from the Sea of Poppies by Amitav distributed with Outlook magazine. My son exclaimed, ‘It should be a very good book. We must get it’. That is the power of publicity, the tricks of which I knew.

A few months later we went for a book jaunt to Crossword and got the Sea of Poppies along with other books. My son started reading it immediately. Hardly a week had passed when I received a mail from Crossword announcing a book signing ceremony by Amitav Ghosh. Usually I am not interested in celebrities. I am more interested in their works. But this situation was special. I had just bought Poppies and it deserved a signing, I decided.

The day was busy for me and I remembered the special task only at 6. At the back of my mind I still thought the scheduled time was 7 pm. When I hurriedly entered the shop and reached the second floor, the signing was just over.

The shop people helped me to meet him on the ground floor on his way out. He was 52, a little taller than me, with a shock of white hair and gentle smile – a suave intellectual gentleman. He asked me the name to sign for. After a little hesitation I told my son’s name. While Amitav took his pen out and was on his job, I told him how after decades I started reading literature again with his Hungry Tide.

Later I smiled at myself.

At home when I showed my son the page across which sprawled the flourish of Amitav’s pen, he said, ‘Whom should I thank, you or him?’

A few days later I looked at the signature again and told him, ‘Isn’t it a great thing, this signature?’ I was surprised when he replied, ‘What is so great about it? Men are men only.’ I said, ‘No not that. This man has a special capability to bring to life scenes and characters by his intense imagination. Otherwise he is just a man like us, I agree. But imagine the wide world he moves in. Imagine the millions of hearts he touched with his pen, this pen. This scrawl has the potential touch of a large wide open world and still longer span of time.’

I must generally say positive things to my offspring, isn’t it?