The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

My return to fiction couldn't have been more exciting than this! Having experimenting with a lot of work in non-fiction, I picked up this book on the recommendation of a friend and I know I didn't regret it!

Somehow, the intial pages reminded me a lot of Roy's God of Small Things.. No, it doesn't depict siblings craving for each other. What I mean to imply is it leaves u with a smell of fresh air, the scent of river with you, the way Roy's book left you with the taste of pickles. The descriptions of the Sunderbans are vivid to say the least. Never for a moment I felt I had gone out of Sunderbans. N having completed teh book now, I long to goto Sunderbans. Even the way "Lucibari", the place in the Tidal Coasts of West bengal, leaves you yearning. The charms of a small town, couldn't have looked better than Ghosh's description. The entire landscape comes to life in front of you eyes. The animate descriptions of dialy cycles of tides - Jowar, the Bhata, with the big cat making its presence felt at regular intervals create a world that kept me hooked to the book.

For the story, it is about Piya, a woman of Indian origin and troubled past who finds her way into the labirynths of Bengal whiel researching the enigmatic river dolphins. On her way she meets Kanai, a middle aged who is tracing his roots back to the same place to read the notebook left by his now dead uncle. While a fisherman Fokir helps Piya in her quest, Kanai discovers through his uncle's notebook the history of the circustances in which he died and how the lives of everyone around Kanai were connected and entangled.

Surprisingly, the book asked a few questions that got lost in the narrative. For e.g. one of female characters Kusum, after starving for days together wonders on the existence of the people who value animals' lives more than people's; about people who would kill men to save trees. Or about the fate of refugees. More philosophically what Kanai's old aunt asks him in end.. Why is it that poets have everyone to speak for them, while no one sees any poetry in the strong, the ones who try to build things!

The beauty of the book is really not the story, but the words that the author has chosen. If you are looking for some edge of seat kind of suspense or fast pace, this may not be the best of the books to read. But for someone who wants to experience a place he never has been to, for someone who likes nature, for someone who is as relaxed as I am these days, there could have been nothing better!

By the way, as the story reaches its climax, there is a lot of mention about the name of this blog! :) Never knew how it actually felt to be in the eye of storm! Quite literally that is..

For now I think i'll continue my affair with fiction :)