Epic tale of opium trade

River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh. Published in 2011 by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books India Private Limited, 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110017. Pp: 558. Price: Rs 699.

At the center of the River of Smoke, the second novel in Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy, is a superbly etched Parsi gentleman, Bahram Modi, and his involvement with the opium trade.

Readers of the Sea of Poppies will remember the tempestuous storm at the end of that novel which engulfs the Ibis and during which some of the characters make their escape on a lifeboat while the others proceed to Mauritius. It is precisely here in Mauritius that the River of Smoke opens several decades later, when Deeti, a young girl in the first novel, is now an aged matriarch who has to be carried to her shrine up a tortuous road. Ghosh, in a succinct manner, gives the reader as much information as is required for one to come to grips with the present novel. If one has read the Sea of Poppies, the first chapter of the River of Smoke is a masterly update in a mixture of Bhojpuri and Creole as Ghosh plays with language in his own inimitable style.

The Ibis, with its load of indentured laborers and convicts, was not the only vessel which was caught in the storm. Heading towards China on board the Anahita, bearing a huge consignment of 3,000 chests of opium, is Modi, a Parsi from Bombay, and on the Redruth, a Cornish brig is Frederick "Fitcher” Penrose who has a shipload of precious plants and who is in search of a rare flowering plant. In the Sea of Poppies we witnessed the hardship of the people who grew the poppies and processed the opium under difficult conditions; in the River of Smoke the focus shifts to the destinies of the men who trade in it and sell it to the Chinese in the province of Canton.

Ghosh strongly believes that the Opium Wars, which were as important to our part of the world as the French Revolution was to Europe, have not been given their proper place in history. One cannot forget that the poppies were grown and processed into opium in India, the ships which transported them to China were Indian ships which were often constructed in Bombay and the men who fought for the British in the Opium Wars were also to a large part drawn from India. Also, a fact which cannot be denied is the role of the Parsis in the opium trade. Bakhtiar Dadabhoy, in his book Sugar in Milk, Lives of Eminent Parsis quotes Dadabhai Naoroji saying: "This opium trade is a sin on England’s head, and a curse on India for her share in being the instrument.” The role of the Parsis in the opium trade cannot be underestimated. In the same work, Dadabhoy mentions, "In 1829-1830, there were about 50 Parsis in Bombay who consigned their opium to Jardine Matheson. Among their 25 regular clients, 13 were Parsis. The Parsis engaged in the opium trade so extensively that when the Opium War broke out, a large part of the Indo-China opium trade was in Parsi hands.”

And hence, it is right that the entire saga which precedes the first Opium War is seen largely through Modi’s point of view. Ghosh presents a period of history which is so fraught with dissention and debate in a "here-and-now” manner and with a zest for life that the reader is transported into the midst of the action and meets a wide array of characters all finely delineated whether they are business tycoons, government administrators, artists, river women, horticulturists or smugglers and other little cogs in the wheel of the opium trade.

Modi began life in relative poverty; his grandfather, though rich, had made some foolish investments and lost his fortune as a result. Reading about his early life, one can’t but help thinking of Jamsetjee Jejee­bhoy who was also born to a poor family in Bom­bay. Modi lost his father before his navjote and Jejeebhoy lost both his parents when he was just a young lad of 15. Both the young and enterprising men made marriages into families of great wealth. Modi married Shirin, the daughter of Seth Rustamjee Pestonjee Mistrie and Jejeebhoy married the daughter of his uncle Framji Nusserwanji Batliwala. Both had no immediate prospects of advancement and lived with their wife’s family and entered their father-in law’s business. Both must have dreamt of making a huge fortune and both were self-made men. If Modi’s ship, the Anahita, ran into stormy waters, Jejeebhoy’s ship, albeit not carrying opium, also met with a similar fate.

Modi is not your usual stock Parsi character who one very often finds in novels written by and about Parsis with Bawa eccentricities. Even when these eccentricities find their way into the novel, they seem very convincing as they are very deeply welded to the plot. One such instance is Shirin’s superstitious behavior when she sees inauspicious omens and wants to prevent her husband from sailing to China. Whereas for the average Englishman the opium trade is merely a matter of free trade versus protectionism, the dilemma which Modi faces is the more complex ethical problem which a thinking man confronts with respect to the opium trade. He sees in the opium trade a means of achieving his independence from the domination of his wife’s family. Though he waxes lyrical about his role as a small link in the supply chain, he is aware that his hands are tainted. He is haunted by guilt of introducing a Chinese boatwoman’s relative, Allow, to opium when he was a young boy which possibly led him to becoming a drug trafficker later in life and Modi’s distress knows no bounds when Commissioner Lin Tse-hsu decides to set an example of Allow and have him executed. Life in Canton for Modi is liberation from the confines and shackles of his life in Bombay. He has an illicit relationship with Chi Mei, a Chinese boatwoman, and even has a son with her. Unlike his friend, Zadig Karabedian, who also has a mistress and a family in Ceylon and who has no compunctions about leaving his lawful family after making provision for their welfare, Modi cannot forsake his Parsi wife and though he is very affectionate to his illegitimate son, Ah Fatt, he dissuades him from visiting India and coming to Bombay. However, the point at which we really sympathize with Modi is when he has to vote on the course which the traders have to take and Charles King advises him to choose between good and evil as exemplified in the teachings of Zoroastrianism and asks him, "Who will you choose Mr Modi? Will you choose the light or the darkness, Ahura Mazda or Ahriman?” Our heart goes out to this man who is put in the awkward situation of having to choose between the welfare of his beloved family and his own "well-being in the hereafter” as he fumbles through his angarkha and seeks the reassurance of his kusti.

Whereas in the Sea of Poppies there were several central protagonists, all with interesting stories of their own, whether it is Deeti, Kalhua, Raja Neel, Paulette, the lascar Serang Ali or Zachary Reid, in the River of Smoke Ghosh, to a very large extent, concentrates on a single character — Modi. On his shoulders lies the responsibility of carrying the novel through. And Ghosh succeeds: Modi is intelligent, capable, resilient, God fearing, loyal and above all a human character and his dilemma is one which the reader can identify with and sympathize.

FIRDAUS GANDAVIA