Hello Readers!
Welcome to my blog. In our syllabus we had one paper on Contemporary Indian English Literature in which we have very Interesting novel of "The Gun Island" Written by Amitav Ghosh. Dr.Dilip Barad sir taught us this novel very interestingly. This task given by Dr Dilip Barad. Click here to learn more about the Novel Gun Island.
Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria and is the author of The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique Land, Dancing in Cambodia, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, and The Ibis Trilogy, consisting of Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire. His most recent book, The Great Derangement; Climate Change and the Unthinkable, a work of non-fiction, appeared in 2016. Amitav Ghosh's most recent novel, Gun Island, is due to be published in 2019.
Click Here to know more about Amitav Ghosh.
'GUN ISLAND' By AMITAV GHOSH
Amitav Ghosh’s latest novel, Gun Island, traces familiar crosscultural patterns evident in his earlier novels. There are journeys by land and water, diaspora and migration, experiences aboard ships, the world of animals and sea-creatures. Ghosh foregrounds environmental issues like climate change and the danger to fish from chemical waste dumped into rivers by factories, concerns that carry over from earlier books like The Hungry Tide and The Great Derangement.
Gun Island describes the quest of Deen, a scholar and collector of rare books, who returns from New York, his city of domicile, to the Sunderbans in West Bengal to unravel the mystery and legend of a seventeenth-century merchant, Bonduki Sada-gar, translated “The Gun Merchant,” and his persecution by Manasa Devi, mythical goddess of snakes. In a talk held in New Delhi after the release of the novel, Ghosh stated that the merchant “was a trope for trade.” The merchant and the goddess dramatize “the conflict between profit and the world.” In the novel, the goddess pursues the merchant to make him aware of other realities like the animal world: “Humans—driven, as was the Merchant, by the quest of profit—would recognize no restraint in relation to other living things.”
Questions and Answers
1. How does Amitav Ghosh use the myth of Gun Merchant 'Bonduki Sadagar' and Manasa Devi to initiate discussion on the issue of Climate Change and Migration/Refugee crisis / Human Trafficking?
Ans :
Amitav Ghosh is a contemporary Indian English writer. He wrote Various novel. In his recent novel 'Gun Island' he uses myths. Myth of Gun Merchant 'Bonduki Sadagar' and myth of Manasa Devi. Ghosh employs the myth of the snake goddess Manasha and connects it to Santa Maria della Salute in Venice , also known as the Madonna of Good health and as the savior from the plague of 1630s who traces her origins to Crete – the same place associated with A-sa-sa-ra-me, the Minoan Goddess of Snakes, through two presences- the first one by the Banduki Saudagar and the second one of Deen. Ghosh manages to put forth the idea of a new universal religion of compassion to nature and
beings or “bhutas”
đŸ‘‰Issue of Climate Change and Migration/Refugee crisis / Human Trafficking.
Ghosh’s novel intervenes in mainstream discussions on the “migrant crisis” in two ways: by positing human migration as a continuum rather than an exceptional event, and by underscoring the agency of the migrants by showing how Rafi and Tipu carefully execute their plans against pressures from human traffickers and border security guards. Gun Island’s juxtaposition of a premodern myth with ongoing anthropogenic climate change reframes contemporary discourses of climate change migration by pointing out that our shared species history is marked by both human and non-human migrations. By so doing, one also recognizes how the environmental humanities can offer interventionist criticism of events such as the Poland-Belarus face-off by critiquing the utilitarian and sedentarist view of the nation-state, foregrounding an ethics of alterity by situating humans relationally with other non-human and geophysical agencies.
2. How does Amitav Ghosh make use of the 'etymology' of common words to sustain mystery and suspense in the narrative?
Amitav Ghosh use etymological mystery in the novel. The Meaning of etymology is explanation of where a word came from : the history of a word. Language given world view. Sometimes we can't understand the meaning of any word, at that time we have to go to the origin of the word. We can see the use of such words that goes into the origin of those words. Let's see some examples
1. Gun Island
When we read Title of the nivel 'Gun Island' we first think that something about the Gun- Bounduki in gujrati Bandhook but not anything about Gun. Gun Island means ,
‘Dwiper bhetorey dwip,’ Rafi had said, ‘an island within an island . . .’ .( E.Book Gun Island pg. 142)
The island that was allotted to the Jews, the meaning of word is ghetto, its nothing with Jews but foundry. Byzantine name for Venice, which was “Banadiq” – the ancestor of the German and Swedish “Venedig”. In Arabic “Banadiq” became “al-Bunduqeyya”, which still remains the proper name for Venice in that language. But bunduqeyya is also the word for guns, hazelnuts and bullets – and the latter, I like to think, were cast precisely in the foundry of the old getto!’ Ghetto in Venice. So the meaning of Gun Island = Getto in Venice wherein Guns & Bullets are made in foundry.
2 . Bhut Ghost
Novel create etymologically mystery of the word 'Bhut'. Gun Island divided into two parts. In the first Part - The Gun Merchant Chapter Brooklyn conversation between Deenanath and Tipu through the mail ‘Bonduki@bonduki.com about meaning of Bhut. Tipu asked th him ‘Does the word BHUTA mean “ghost”?
‘Look, I’m no expert on this,’ I wrote. ‘All I can tell you is that the Bangla word “bhoot” or “bhuta” comes from a basic but very complicated Sanskrit root, “bhu”, meaning “to be”, or “to manifest”. So in that sense “bhuta” simply means “a being” or “an existing presence”.’(E.Book pg.110), “bhuta” also refers to the past, in the sense of “a past state of being”. Like when we say “bhuta-kala” or “times past”.’So Bhuta means not ghost but a memory.
3. Possession
In part one of the novel in one of the chapter named Brooklyn. Conversation between Deenanath and Tipu.
‘You mean “possession”?’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I snapped. ‘Possession is when someone is taken over by
a demon.’
‘“De” what?’
‘Demon.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s nothing. Just a metaphor for greed. An imaginary thing.’ (E.Book pg.116)
So the possession means Awakening.
4. Land of palm sugar candy
“Land of Palm Sugar Candy” was Taal-misrir-desh. Desh is “country” in Bengali, and taal is a kind of palm tree that produces a sugary syrup which is used to make all kinds of sweets including a crystallized candy. Cinta translated the phrase as “palm sugar candy” because the Bengali word for “sugar candy” is misri.’ ‘Do you not know that “Misr” is but the Arabic word for Egypt? Cinta said that Misri or masri just means “Egyptian” – perhaps crystallized sugar is known as misri because the process had come to Bengal by way of Egypt. (E.Book pg.144)
5. Land of Kerchieves
‘The Land of Kerchieves? In the legend it was called Rumaali-desh. In
Bengali rumaal is a handkerchief . . .’
A triumphant cry burst from Cinta’s lips: ‘Hah! But nothing could be
more clear! Of course! That too is a place.’
‘What place?’
‘Have you not heard of Rumelia? Or of the fort of Rumeli-Hisari?’
I shook my head. ‘No? Where is it?’
‘In Turkey.’( E.Book pg. 145)
Cinta asked for the Bengali translation of the word Land of Kerchieves. Deen told her it was called Rumaali-desh. In Bengali Rumaal is a handkerchief. Located in the place of Turkey.
6. Land of Chain
“The Island of Chains”.’
‘Say that in Bangla.’
‘Shikol-dwip.’
‘There you are! That’s the solution – shikol.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said in puzzlement. ‘How is that the solution?’
‘Because,’ said Cinta, ‘the Arabic name for Sicily is “Siqillia” – the
resemblance to shikol is not incidental I think. The word must have
metamorphosed as the legend was passed down from mouth to mouth.(E.Book pg. 252)
The Bengali word for this is "shikol-dwip". And this is a reference to Sikelia and that is now Sicily. So the Island of Chains is used for Sicily.
Q : 4 Is there any connection between The Great Derangement and Gun Island?
In his last book, "The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable", writer Amitav Ghosh had questioned contemporary fiction's failure to address climate change and other environmental issues, realising soon after that he had not done it in his eight novels spanning over a three decade long literary career.
"Gun Island", Ghosh's latest, is his attempt at an answer to all those questions.
"It certainly is my attempt at an answer. When I finished writing 'The Great Derangement', I said to myself, 'What the hell have I done?' Look at this book questioning how fiction approaches these subjects and now I have to think of an answer," the author said.
Thank you...
Citation
Ghosh, Amitav. Amitavghosh.com, https://www.amitavghosh.com/pictures.html.
Ghosh , Amitav. “Biography.” Amitav Ghosh:Biography, https://www.amitavghosh.com/bio.html.
