Reconstructing Bengali Popular Folklores:
Engaging with Past and Present of Environmental Consciousness in Amitav Ghosh’s
Gun Island
Animesh
Roy
Senior Research Fellow
Department of Humanistic Studies
Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu
University),
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
Abstract:
In
his fictional work Gun Island (2019), Amitav Ghosh addresses the shift in
global climatic patterns and incorporates Bengali traditional folklore, specifically
Manasa Mangal. Chand Sadagar was cursed by the serpent deity, Manasa Devi.
Amitav Ghosh constructs a premodern myth featuring Gun Merchant, the main
character, affected by droughts and floods caused by climatic disruptions
during the Little Ice Age. Ghosh incorporates constructive ideas from the
Manasa Mangal Kavya into the novel, addressing present environmental challenges
that affect individuals, non-humans, and the globe at large, giving the thesis
of the novel global significance. This research paper analyses how Ghosh
transforms folklores by incorporating historical elements to illuminate on
contemporary global concerns like climate change. Ghosh concludes that the
relationship between humans and the environment has the potential to improve
the climate and safeguard the world.
Keywords: Climate change, Climate crisis,
Environment, Folklore, Manasa Devi, Myth
Amitav Ghosh’s novels are characterised by colonial history, folklore,
and mythology. His works also address complex themes such as rootlessness,
identity, migration, and diasporic nostalgia. Amitav Ghosh incorporates the
Bengali folk tale Manasamangal Kavya, which narrates the story of the serpent
goddess Manasa and Chand Sadagar, in his fictional work Gun Island (2019). Ghosh contrasts the anthropogenic climate crisis
with the current state of planetary crises. Ghosh faces challenging concerns
such as climate change, climate-induced migration, and environmental
degradation affecting not only Bangladesh and India but also large cities in
developed countries like the USA and Italy. Deen Datta, a rare book merchant
from Brooklyn, New York, is convinced to remember the ancient folk tale of The
Merchant and Manasa Devi, which is still prevalent in the eastern regions of
India and Bangladesh. The tale portrays the retaliation of a serpent deity and
the merchant fleeing from her anger. Ghosh uses this traditional story to shed
light on the current climate problem. The Manasa Mangal kavya is the oldest of
Mangal-kavya; it narrates how the snake-goddess started her devotion in Bengal
and converted a devotee of Shiva into her followers.
The story commences with the merchant Chand Sadagar’s quarrel with
Manasa and concludes with Chand Sadagar becoming a fervent admirer of Manasa.
Chand Sadagar is a trader who worships Lord Shiva. Manasa aspires to convert
Chand into a follower of her cult. Chand Sadagar does not acknowledge her as a
divinity because Manasa seeks vengeance by destroying seven of his ships and
killing his seven sons. Behula, the wife of Chand’s youngest son, Lakhindar,
demonstrates her love for her husband by showing strength of character, great
devotion, and fearlessness, making the goddess bow to her. Behula resurrects
Chand Sadagar’s seven sons and saves his fortune. Chand Sadagar and Behula have
been shown as stubborn and determined individuals during a period when common people
were oppressed. Ghosh begins his novel by referencing the 1970 Bhola cyclone in
Bangladesh, which resulted in the loss of over half a million lives in the
coastal regions of Bangladesh and India. Ghosh reflected in Gun Island:
Eight days earlier- on November 12, 1970, to
be precise- a category four cyclone had torn through the Bengal Delta, hitting
both the Indian province of West Bengal and the State that was then called East
Pakistan (a year later it would become a new nation, Bangladesh). Storms had to
names in this region back then but the 1970 cyclone would later come to be
known as the Bhola cyclone. (Ghosh 13)
Nilima, Ghosh’s interlocutor, reports Ghosh with a surprising anecdote
from the November 1970 Bhola cyclone. Nilima learns that no one from the hamlet
were suffered from bodily harm by the cyclone. The villagers were fortunate
enough to the protection of the mythical Manasa Devi.
“Spotting a few people on the riverbank,
Nilima asked Horen to pull in. From the look of the place, she assumed that
many of the hamlet’s inhabitants had been killed or wounded but on enquiring,
she received an unexpected answer. She learnt that no one from that hamlet had
even managed to salvage their belongings and stocks of food. To what did the
village owe itsgood fortune? The answer startled Nilima: her informants told
her that the miracle was due to Manasa Devi, the goddess of snakes, who, they
said, was the protector of a nearby shrine.” (Ghosh 14)
The people of the tide country have reverence and devotion for Manasa
Devi which actually protects them from the adverse effects of nature. Besides,
she is known for being violent and angry if disobeyed, which entails Chand
Sadagar-Manasa Devi’s story more intense. Ghosh architects a modern myth of Gun
Merchant, whose homeland is eastern India, which is struck by drought and
floods brought on by the climate disturbances of the Little Ice Age. Ghosh
examines that these old legends underwent the same hostile situation we have
been going through. As Gun Merchant sails out into the Bay of Bengal, he is
captivated by Portuguese Pirates and sold to Goa as a part of the Indian Ocean
slave trade. He is brought to Goa by a sailor named Nakhuda Ilyas, with whom he
goes to the Maldives, Egypt, Istanbul, and finally to Venice. The different
versions of the real Manasa Mangal
tale have different accounts of voyages to the sea.
According to Bipradas, in Manasa Mangal Chand Saudagar passed
through “Hughli, Bhatpara, Kankinara, Bhadreswar, Ichapur, Bankibazar, Khardah,
Rishra, Sukhchar, Konnagar, Kamarhati, Ariadaha, Chitpur, then by passing
Kalikata to Kalighat, Kumarhati, Baruipur and finally the perils faced by the
Saudagar at the open sea.” (Chaudhury 307)
The Gun Merchant’s story originates from The Little Ice Age and is
currently experiencing resurgence due to global climate change. Cinta, a
renowned historian specialising in the history of Venice, states that Venice
was a diminished and eerie city when your merchant arrived in the 1660s. Its
peak as an economic powerhouse had passed with the unveiling of new sea routes
to the Americas and the Indian Ocean (Ghosh 230). Alexander Koch’s paper “Earth
System impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after
1492” verifies that human activities influenced carbon dioxide levels and
worldwide air temperatures in the 16th and 17th centuries, preceding the
Industrial Revolution. He claims that the Great Dying of the indigenous peoples
of the Americas impacted atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Contemporary human displacement from the Sundarbans due to climate
change is similar to the ancient legend of the Gun Merchant, who fled his
homeland to save his life from the destructive effects of climate change
represented by the goddess Manasa’s wrath. Italian historian Cinta provides a
practical analysis of the old tale of Gun Merchant. The concurrent narrative of
the past and present clarifies that the legend is “an apocryphal record of a
real journey to Venice” (Ghosh 138). Piya, a researcher of Irrawaddy dolphins,
states that “we’re in a new world”. Neither humans nor animals know where they
belong anymore (Ghosh 97). Climate change, climate migration, and water
pollution pose an existential threat to all living species on the globe.
The residents of the coastal region endured a challenging existence
marked by frequent storms and cyclones, necessitating constant adaptation to
their fragile circumstances. In 2009, Horen, a fisherman from the Sundarbans,
ceased his fishing operations when two of his trawlers and a few other boats
capsized during the Aila Cyclone. The incursion of seawater rendered the soil
infertile and unsuitable for cultivation, prompting the farmers to abandon the
area. The rise in sea level caused by global warming and human-induced climate
change impacts mangrove forests and coastal communities. The frequency of
people traffickers is rising with each hurricane, targeting young guys.
Traffickers transport women to distant brothels and men to various countries.
For the past thirty years, the Bay of Bengal region, particularly the
Ganga-Brahmaputra lowlands, has experienced frequent and severe floods,
resulting in numerous fatalities and displacements (Mehta and Kumar 2019).
Increasing in sea-level temperature in the area results in elevated atmospheric
moisture, causing unusually heavy rainfall. Rapidly melting Himalayan glaciers
are accompanying this. Estimates indicate that approximately 125 million
individuals, with 75 million specifically from Bangladesh, may face
homelessness by the end of the century. Additionally, an average of 70–80
million migrants could potentially become climate refugees from Bangladesh in
India (Arefin, 2017; Greenpeace International, 2008; Sharalaya, 2018).
Avijit Mistri in his book Environmental
Change, Livelihood Issues and Migration analyses that the Sundarbans people
fully depend on farming and fishing occupations which are highly susceptible to
the climate stimuli. Climate change and livelihood issues along with an acute
development deficit in the Sundarbans make the livelihoods more tough and
vulnerable. Besides that, out-migration is the most common livelihood strategy
for survival. In the novel Amitav Ghosh mentions that surviving a life in the
Sundarbans had become so hard that the exodus of the young was accelerating
every year. Boys and girls were borrowing and stealing to pay agents to find
them work elsewhere. Some were slipping over the border into Bangladesh, to
join labour gangs headed for the Gulf countries. And if that failed they would
pay traffickers to smuggle them to Malaysia or Indonesia on boats. (Ghosh 49)
Ghosh's imaginative adaptation of the Manasa-mangal Kavyas also adds a
touch of realism to the Gun Merchant’s escape. Unlike Chand Sadagar who
travelled to Ceylon, the Gun Merchant fled to Venice by water in the fifteenth
century when the Manasa-mangal Kavyas was created, as stated by Ghosh and other
historians. Ghosh stated that the area appeared secure from non-human
interference, with only a few decorative trees and plants visible that were not
of human origin. The Gun Merchant would have undoubtedly realised that he was
beyond his tormentor’s reach. The Gun Merchant does not get the desired relief
and safety after being banished from the dense jungle with its snakes and god
located in the remote Sundarbans in the southeastern part of Bengal. Ghosh does
not elaborate on the specific pain experienced by the Gun Merchant in Venice
but presents an alternative viewpoint that supports the presence of Manasa Devi
in the mythological world of Manasa-mangal Kavyas. Ghosh bases her existence
and devotion to Manasa Devi on the crucial goal of protecting the natural
environment from human greed and encroachment. For generations, the serpent
deity Manasa Devi has been venerated throughout East Bengal and its surrounding
areas, which now encompass Bangladesh and parts of West Bengal. The god is
currently being worshipped, and Hindus perform a particular worship known as
Naga Panchami throughout the months of July and August. The anthropomorphic
serpent goddess is shown through numerous images and stone idols, currently
displayed in various museums in Bangladesh and India. The oldest one originates
from the eleventh century, demonstrating the serpent goddess's influence on the
collective consciousness of many Hindu communities in India and Bangladesh
throughout the years (Jash 174). Ghosh examines the myth and story of the Gun
Merchant's plight, while also acknowledging the realism in the worship of
Manasa Devi.
Ghosh conveys that Manasa Devi is attempting
to protect environment, specifically deep ecology, from human interference. Her
anger and reputation for controlling venomous jungle creatures serve as
potential obstacles that must be considered before humans enter the jungle.
When considering taking over its fundamental attributes and characteristics,
they should also consider the repercussions of such actions. Human beings will
face retribution, such a snake bite or experiencing natural disasters like as
tidal waves, cyclones, or floods, when they harm nature. Manasa Devi serves as
the guardian of the border that separates the human realm from the world of
nature and animals. Manasa Devi pursues the gun trader to seek punishment for
his transgressions.
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