Asian Window

In Hindustan Times, Amitav Ghosh goes behind the curtains of his latest novel, The Sea of Poppies, and talks about what led him to this epic tale of drug-running and sea-faring.

Near the beginning of Sea of Poppies, Deeti, the central character, has a vision of the Ibis, the schooner that will eventually carry her away from India. For me, too, the book began in much the same way – except that the vision that was revealed to me was of Deeti herself. I knew from the start that her story would be the main current of this novel; she would be the river that carried the weight of its many tributary streams.

One of the reasons why I was drawn to Deeti’s story is that my own ancestors set off on their travels at about the same time as she did: the difference was that they moved in the opposite direction. The founder of the family is said to have left his village in eastern Bengal in the early part of the 19th century. Moving gradually westwards, he came to a halt in 1856, when he settled in Chhapra, a small town in Bihar – the very place in which Deeti and Kalua come to their fateful decision to sever their links with the past and seek a new life overseas. It was this unnamed ancestor who led me into the story of opium by prompting me to wonder why he had ended up where he did. What led him to settle in this relatively obscure place? What opportunities could he have been seeking? This was then the world’s single most important poppy-growing region and was thus one of the chief sources of the wealth of the British Raj. Such opportunities as existed there must have been connected with opium in some way. Could it be that the star that ruled my family’s destiny – and thus my own – was the same as Deeti’s, that is to say, the seed of the poppy?

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Previously in AW: Lascars, sepoys and nautch girls

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