Re-Reading Amitav Ghosh’s Shadow Lines

Recently I re-read Amitav Ghosh’s Shadow Lines and was once again reminded why this book is one of my favourites and the best work of fiction till date by Ghosh. This note isn’t meant to be a review of Shadow Lines, but just a bunch of jottings based on my most recent reading.

• Is there any Indian who had a middle-class upbringing who did not listen wide-eyed to tales narrated by ‘phoren’ relatives? One listened to every word they spoke, remembered the street or lane or boulevard they lived in, the names of their ‘phoren’ friends and greedily asked for even more details. This is essentially what the unnamed narrator does as he gets us started on the story of Tridib and the rest of the Datta Chaudhuris and the Prices.
• This time, I was for some reason reminded of David Copperfield’s opening scene when I re-read the opening lines of Shadow Lines.

Thirteen years before I was born, my father’s aunt, Mayadebi, went to England with her husband and her son, Tridib.

 

I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

• Set in England and Bengal from the 1930s to the late 1960s, Shadow Lines depicts a bye-gone era that we've seen only in black & white movies. I think I enjoyed Ghosh’s description of a post-World War II England a lot more this time than in my previous reading. I think it is England which has changed a lot more than Calcutta.
• Neither the narrator nor Tridib nor any of the Datta Chaudhuris seem to have experienced any serious racism in England, save for Ila’s doll Magda’s traumatic experiences at the hands of Denise. I guess racism reared its ugly head in the UK only in the early 70s.
• The narrator’s grandmother, who is Tridib’s aunt, reminded me of David Copperfield’s aunt. Her attitude to Tridib who she considers to be a loafer and a wastrel, is on the same lines as David Copperfield’s aunt’s attitude to various characters in Dickens tome. These ladies form their opinions fast and stick with them
• In this reading, Nick Price came across as two-dimensional. I distinctly remember being impressed and awed by Nick Price and later hating him and feeling sorry for Ila when I read Shadow Lines long time ago. This time, I didn’t particularly feel sorry for Ila or hate Nick. A sign of age or maturity or cynicism?
• The grandmother’s omelette - a leathery little squiggle studded with green chillies. The omelettes I ate as a child were very different - they were soft and fluffy. Many years after I read Shadow Lines, I actually ate such an omelette at a wayside Dabha. Is the leathery nature of the omelette a reflection on the grandmother’s character?
• I found myself looking at the narrator with contempt this time. The narrator is in awe of Ila, possibly has a huge crush on her, though she is his second cousin. Towards the end, the narrator has a scene with May, his deceased uncle Tridib’s lover and partner. Why isn’t there a single mention of a relationship with someone outside the Datta Chaudhuri and the Price families? We know that the narrator is doing a Ph.D. on the textile trade between India and England in the nineteenth century and that he received a year’s research grant to go to England to collect material from the India Office Library for his thesis. Towards the end of the novel, there is a stray reference to a ‘thesis’, implying that it is incomplete and the Ph.D not yet in the narrator’s bag. Definitely a loser!
• [SPOILER ALERT] Finally, the billion dollar question. Is May responsible for Tridib’s death? I know, May made her peace with Tridib, but I never did and re-reading Shadow Lines did not help me sort out this pending issue one bit. I was back to where I started. For years, May used to think she had killed him. She thought she was the reason Tridib got out of the car. However, later she worked out that there was no reason for Tridib to have plunged into the mob to save her. She was always safe, she was a white woman, the mob wouldn’t have harmed her and Tridib should have known that. So when Tridib jumped in to save her, he was actually just making a sacrifice.
• I still struggle to buy May’s argument. I think May should have known that Tridib would have tried to protect her from the mob, even if he thought that it was highly likely that the mob wouldn’t have harmed her. There was no way Tridib could have stayed in the car when May was fighting the mob. Knowing Tridib as well as she did, there was no way May could have assumed that Tridib would have stayed in that car when she was battling the mob. No way May, I can’t bring myself to absolve you from responsibility for Tridib's murder.
• Also, when May says Tridib was actually just making a “sacrifice”, is she implying that he was committing suicide? I just don’t see why Tridib would want to commit suicide at that juncture. Were things so bad for him then? No, definitely not. So, is May saying Tridib needlessly sacrificed himself for her? Maybe.