Remapping the 'Bhatir Desh': Reflections on Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide

Abstract

he efflorescence of Anglophone narratives by the novelists of previously colonized countries of Asia and Africa in the last three decades addressing the issues of culture, language, citizenship, gender and most importantly identity, with regard to the impact of globalization and cosmopolitanism has garnered serious academic attention. In those narratives, the politico-physical, socio-cultural and mental boundaries are being repeatedly challenged and often successfully dismantled. In their novels, the fixed linearity of European frontiers is disrupted and cartography of cultural space becomes the basic for the artistic expression of the 'newer' identity. This paper, using Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide (2004) as a case study argues that stable concepts of home and belonging, for several reasons, has become something unusual in this globalized world. Along with the phenomenal changes like international migration, multi-linguality and pervasive networking of digital media, societies are fast changing. Routes rather than roots are gaining primacy in the cultural imaginary: a 'remapping' is so relevant. This paper's contribution to scholarship lies in pointing out Ghosh's unique depiction of a multicultural space, which accommodates people of different world views in a place hitherto unattended by all sorts of critical, eco-critical, national and international consciousness. My endeavour also attempts to establish the view that within the discourses of history, culture and language, identity is not something essentialist, but 'a matter of becoming as well as being' (Hall: 1990).In Ghosh's The Hungry Tide, language also takes a crucial role in questioning the hegemonic solidarity of 'Englishness'. Numerous Bengali words in English script float on the tide of the basic narrative in English, and the experience is unique to the English enabled educated readership. After the tide (also The Hungry Tide) is over, a remote region at the far end of Ganges Delta becomes visible - from every corner of the globe.