Amitav Ghosh’s latest novel will open the readers’ eyes to the different vistas offered by the Indian landscape. The Hungry Tide is located in the tide country of Bengal, the Sundarban. An archipelago of 54 islands, crisscrossed by the river Ganga’s many tributaries, covered with mangroves and saline mud flats, the Sundarban is better known as a tiger reserve. Established in 1974, the tiger reserve is said to have 269 tigers and spreads over 2,585 sq. km.
However, the mangrove forest, one of the largest of the world, thick with the Sundari trees from which Sundarban seemingly gets its name, is also home to the Gangetic and the Irrawady dolphins. The mangrove is located in one of the largest deltas in the world, formed by the rivers Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna. When the tide rises, the forest seems to float in the water, and when the water recedes, land appears. In this fluctuating ecosystem, the critically endangered Irrawady dolphins negotiate their ways through the intricate waterways of the mangrove.
An anthropologist by education, and a former journalist, Ghosh imparts his works with an evocative narrative that question notions such as borders, history and cultures. So too in The Hungry Tide, by pitching together Piya, Kanai and Fokir. Piya is an American cetologist with a Bengali heritage, who goes to the Sundarban to check out the marine mammals in the area. Kanai is a cosmopolitan Bengali, who’s left Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) for his lucrative translation business in New Delhi. And Fokir is an illiterate fisherman, who knows the waterways of the Sundarban intimately.
The lives of the three people connect. Piya employs Fokir as a guide, for he seems to know exactly where to find the elusive Irrawady dolphins. And Kanai, who has come to Lusibari, one of the many islands in the tide country, to address some family matters, joins the mission to track the dolphins.
Like the intricate waterways through which Fokir’s boat traverses, the book’s narrative is built of several other stories. Kanai is back in Lusibari at his widowed aunt’s request, to look over some literature left behind by his late uncle. And so, his uncle’s narrative joins in the fray. Then there’s the local lore of Bon Bibi (the forest goddess) that also plays a prominent feature in the interconnecting stories.
Although it’s not the major theme of the novel, The Hungry Tide, seems to raise questions about the political history of Bengal. The reference of the Morichijhapi massacre in the late 70’s seems to challenge some of the very ideals Bengali politics was based on. (It wouldn’t be a stretch to compare it with the current state of Indian politics in direct contrast to the Nehruvian vision.) The refugees in Morichijhapi, one of the tide country islands, lived on Communist principles popular in Bengal, in harmony with their natural habitat. However, the area came under the government’s purview and the government deemed it necessary to remove the squatters, resulting in a massacre.
The book is also a cautionary tale about the ecological state of affairs in the Sundarban. Piya’s interest in marine life and Fokir’s affinity to water are set against those who are apathetic to the unique ecosystem of the mangrove. While Piya and Fokir set out to understand and explore the ways of this water world, others display a callous attitude that ultimately poses a risk to the richness of the tide country.