The River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh

River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Nice book. It continues from where the "Sea of Poppies" leaves us. The book starts at a much later time after the end in "Sea of Poppies". It starts with a description of Deeti and her descendants going to a temple in a remote corner of Mauritius. In this temple Deeti has recorded her travel and experiences from India to Mauritius. Others like Neel and Paulette have also contributed to this. From here it traces the lives of Neel, Ah Fatt, Paulette and Seth Bahram (Ah Fatt's father) from the time at the end of the "Sea of Poppies".
It starts off with how Seth Bahram starts of a poor Parsi living in Navsari in Gujarat and how he comes to marry a rich Parsi's daughter. He then persuades his reluctant father in law to allow him to trade in Opium which is grown in India and is sold in China. The book gives details of how the trade has caused a large population of China to become addicted to it and how the emperor of China is trying to stop its inflow. This is resisted, for obvious reasons, by the British, American and the few Indian traders.
The book goes on to describe how Seth Bahram has set off from Bombay with a large, and hopefully his last, shipment of opium which he has purchased after staking everything that he has. He gets caught in the same storm as Ibis and loses some part of his shipment. By the time he reaches Hongkong the Emperor has managed to shutdown the port of Canton in an attempt to eradicate smuggling of opium into the country. So all the opium importers have to anchor at Hongkong.
In Hongkong Seth meets Ah Fatt his son sired through a Chinese lady in his earlier jaunts to China. The lady in question has died and Ah Fatt has tried to escape to India to meet his father where he is caught committing a crime for which he is sentenced to be transported to Mauritius and that is how he comes to meet Neel.
Neel becomes the Munshi to the Seth as the Seth's Munshi has died because of a trunk falling on his head during the storm. Neel and the Seth travel to Canton in another boat.
In the meantime Paulette meets Mr. Penrose a botanist who is on his way to China to trace a flower of exquisite beauty. He has a painting of this flower which was brought by an earlier botanist. Paulette joins Mr. Penrose on this journey to China and they are anchored at Hongkong too.
Also in parallel an artist from Britain who had run away from his wife in Britain to India had sired two sons through his Indian mistress. This mistress and the mother of Jodu who took care of Paulette happen to live in the same area and are friends. This artist has runaway again from his mistress in India to Canton as no foreign ladies are allowed in Canton. He then shifts to Hongkong and is presently living there. Here he is joined by one of his sons who has been friends of Jodu and Paulette. Mr. Penrose comes in touch with this artist to try and locate the artist who might have painted the flower that he is trying to search and thus Paulette gets back in touch with her childhood friend the son of this artist.
This son then moves to Canton and from here he keeps Paulette updated with the events in Canton through a series of letters.
Now the book moves on to describe the living of the foreign merchants in Canton. It details how the opium is smuggled into the country.
The book goes onto say how these merchants are forced to surrender their opium to the representative of the Chinese emperor who goes on to destroy this opium so that it causes no more problem. In the process Seth Bahram loses all his money and for fear of recrimination from the people from who he has borrowed he commits suicide. The book ends at this point.
It is an engrossing book and loses no steam. It carries on from where the "Sea of Poppies" left off. It looks like the third part would be equally engrossing.
Mr. Amitav Ghosh has managed to hold his audience enthralled.



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