Echoes of the Subalterns in Amitav
Ghosh’s River of Smoke
Dr. Dipika Bhatt,
Assistant Professor,
Department of English,
H.V.M. (P.G.) College,
Raisi, Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India.
Abstract: Amitav
Ghosh’s River of Smoke from the
perspective of post-colonialism my paper proposes to examine and explore the
problem of racial and cultural identity of subalterns. The main plot of River of Smoke is set in Fanqui town,
situated on a small piece of land used by merchants from other countries to
transact business with local Chinese traders. The novel’s story begins before
one year of Opium trade. In this novel Ghosh has created a rich and colorful
cast of characters drawn from diverse geographical, cultural and historical
backgrounds whose common interest is to make money by doing trade with China.
The novel’s plot is set in Fanqui town, situated on a small piece of land used
by merchants from other countries to transact business with local Chinese
traders. When the story begins the time is a year before of the first opium
war. In River of Smoke Ghosh
highlights on the issue of racial hybridity and culture through his subaltern
characters. Bahram is a man of steely integrity. He married to a Parsi woman
and son-in-law of a established merchant but imagined himself a successful
businessman of his own empire. He thinks that
the export trade between Western India and China was growing very fast, and
offered all kinds of opportunities - not just of profit but also of travel,
escape and excitement. Mr. Bahram Modi a Parsi man and Chi-mei a Chinese woman
have an illegal son Ah Fatt. Ghosh wants to explore that in lack of good
education and other essential facilities the boat children’s development would
not possible and they entered in the world of crime easily. He meets Dai-Lou, a
big opium-sailor and he joined him. Ah Fatt told to Neel that Dia-Lou had many
boys like him to work for him; he likes to hire his kind. Thus through the
character of Bahram we find the male psyche of freedom and existence. Through
my paper I highlight the problems and the poor condition faced by subalterns
like Chi-mei, Ah Fatt and Adeline who sometimes for money, in lack of education
and unawareness about rights suffer a lot in their life.
Keywords: Subaltern, Hybridity of race, Cultural hybridity, Lack
of education and unawareness about rights, Opium trade
Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy consists of three novels
namely Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire.
All these three novels are beautifully picturises some historical incidents
like opium war and trade as settings. Ghosh made a ship called Ibis as a
microcosm of culture in which people from different nations, cultures and
castes were forced to intermingle with each other, ignorant about their future
destination. Ibis trilogy is a story set in the first half of the 19th century.
It speaks about the opium war and trade and trafficking of coolies to
Mauritius. The first volume of Ibis trilogy, Sea of Poppies speaks about
the stories of Deeti, an ordinary village woman of higher caste and her husband
Hukum Singh, an opium addict worker in Gazhipur opium factory. Here Ghosh
picturises Deeti, one of the central characters in the novel as marginalized
woman because being a woman and a wife of an opium addict. Throughout the novel
the reader can analyse the emotional pangs she was forced to withstand. At
first she was seduced by her husband’s brother, when she was unconscious then
she was forced to attain sati from which she narrowly escapes with the help of
Kalua, a down trodden man of low caste.
Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke from the
perspective of post-colonialism my paper proposes to examine and explore the
problem of cultural identity of subalterns. The main plot of River of Smoke is
set in Fanqui town, situated on a small piece of land used by merchants from
other countries to transact business with local Chinese traders. The novel’s
story begins before one year of Opium trade. In this novel Ghosh has created a
rich and colorful cast of characters drawn from diverse geographical, cultural
and historical backgrounds whose common interest is to make money by doing
trade with China. The novel’s plot is set in Fanqui town, situated on a small
piece of land used by merchants from other countries to transact business with
local Chinese traders. When the story begins the time is a year before of the
first opium war.
At the opening of the novel
three ships namely Redruth, Anahita and Ibis from Sea of Poppies- run
into a raging storm off the coast of Canton, the Chinese port city. The ship,
Anahita is owned by Bahram Moddie who is a son-in-law of Rustamji Mistrie, a
Parsi Opium trader of Bombay. The other ship, Redruth is owned by Fitcher
Penrose who is on an expedition to collect rare species of plants from China,
and the last ship, Ibis, is carrying convicts and indentured labourers to
Mauritius. In River
of Smoke, Ghosh highlights on the issue of racial hybridity and culture
through his subaltern characters.
Once there had been a time when Bahram’s own family had
also been prosperous and well-respected, occupying a place of distinction in
their hometown of Navsari, in coastal Gujarat; his grandfather had been a
well-known textile dealer, with important court connections in princely
capitals like Baroda, Indore and Gwalior. But in his waning years, after a life
time of prudence, he had made a slew of rash investments, incurring an enormous
burden of debt.
Being a man of steely integrity, he had taken
it upon himself to pay off every loan, down to the last tinny, coproon and half
anna; as a result, the family had been reduced to utter penury, with no more
than a handful of cowries in their khazana. Forced to sell off their beautiful
old haveli, they had moved into a couple of rooms on the edge of town, and this
had proved fatal for the old man as well as his son, Bahram’s father, who was a
consumptive and had suffered from lifelong ill health; he did not live to see
Bahram’s navjote - his ceremonial induction into the Zoroastrian faith.
His mother was
an exceptionally good needlewoman, and the shawls she embroidered were much
prized and admired. When word of the family’s plight spread through the
community, orders came pouring in, and by dint of thrift and hard work, she was
able not only to feed her children, but also to provide Bahram with the
rudiments of an education. In time her renown spread as far as Bombay, fetching
her important commission: she was asked to supply embroidered wedding shawls
for the daughter of one of the foremost Parsi businessmen of the city - Seth
Rustamjee Pestonjee Mistrie. The two families were not unknown to each other,
for the Mistrie business had also been founded in Navsari - its origins lay in
a small furniture work shop which the Modis’, in their heyday, had lavishly
patronized and supported. Attached to the workshop was a shed for building
boats: although small to begin with, this part of the business had quickly
outstripped very other branch. After winning a major contract from the East
India Company, the Mistries’ had moved to Bombay where they had opened a
shipyard in the dockside district of Mazagon. On taking charge of the firm,
Seth Rustamjee had built energetically upon his inheritance, and under his
direction the Mistrie shipyard had become one of the most successful
enterprises in the Indian subcontinent. Now, his daughter was to marry a scion
of one of the richest merchant families in the land, the Dadi seths’ of Colaba,
and the wedding was to be celebrated on a scale never seen before.
But a few days
before the beginning of the festivities, with all the arrangements made and
anticipation at its height, fate intervened: one of the Dadi seths’ associates
in Aden had presented the prospective bridegroom with a fine Arab stallion, and
the boy who was only fifteen had insisted on taking it for a ride on the beach.
Disoriented after the long journey across the sea, the horse was sorely out of
temper: galloping headlong on the sand, the boy was thrown and killed. For the
Mistrie family the boy’s death was a double disaster: not only did they lose
the son-in-law of their dreams, they had also to reconcile themselves to the
knowledge that the tragedy would make it difficult, if not impossible, for
their daughter to make a good marriage: her prospects were sure to be
contaminated by the stain of misfortune.
When they began
to send out feelers once again, their apprehensions were quickly confirmed: the
girl’s plight occasioned much sympathy without eliciting any acceptable offers of
marriage. When it became clear that no proposals would be forthcoming from
within their circle, the Mistrie’s reluctantly took their search beyond the
city, to their ancestral town, where they presently found their way to Bahram’s
mother’s door.
After facing
many difficulties this branch of the Modis was acknowledged to be of
respectable pedigree, and Bahram himself was a sturdy, good-looking lad,
more-or-less educated, and of an appropriate age, being almost sixteen years
old. Hearing good reports of him, the Seth met with Bahram during a trip to
Navsari and was favorably impressed by his eagerness and energy: it was he who
decided that the boy would be an acceptable match for his daughter, despite the
disadvantages of a rough-edged demeanour and a poverty-stricken upbringing. By
Mistrie the proposal that was sent to Bahram’s mother was qualified by certain
stipulations that since the boy had no money and no immediate prospects for
advancement, the couple would have to live in Bombay, in the Mistrie mansion,
and the groom would have to enter the family business. Here Indian’s belief on
fate and astrology is truly picturised.
Bahram’s mother
who had facing many difficulties in her life says that “For a man to live with
his in-laws, as a ‘house-husband’ - a gherjamai
- is never an easy thing. You know what people say about sons-in-law: kutra pos, bilarã pos per
jemeinãjeniyãnevarmãkhos - rear a dog, rear a cat, but shove the
son-in-law and his offspring into the gutter…” (River of Smoke 48). He knew that an opportunity like this one was
unlikely ever to be presented to him again and he accepts his offer.
Bahram and
Shireenbai moved into an apartment in the Mistrie mansion on Bombay’s Apollo
Street. Shireenbai was a shy, retiring girl whose spirits had been permanently
dimmed by the tragedy that preceded her marriage; her demeanour was more of a
widow than a bride, and she seemed always to be shrouded in melancholy, as
though she were mourning the husband she should have had. Towards Bahram she
was dutiful, if unenthusiastic, and since he had not expected much more, they
dealt with each other well enough and had two daughters in quick succession.
Mistries had
succeeded in making their firm into a formidable force within a fiercely
competitive industry because they had kept their attention closely fixed upon
their chosen fields of expertise. To fit into such a specialized organization
required, of a newcomer, certain skills and abilities that Bahram did not
possess: tools did not sit well in his fidgety hands, details bored him, and he
was too individualistic to stay in step with a team of fellow workers. His
tenure as an apprentice shipwright was a short one and he was quickly shunted
off to a dingy daftar at the back, where the firm’s accounts were tabulated.
But this suited
him no better for neither numbers nor the men who worked with them were of the
least interest to him: shroffs and ledger-keepers seemed to him to be painfully
constrained in their vision of the world, devoid of imagination and entrepreneurship.
His own gifts, as he saw them, were of a completely different kind; he was good
at dealing with people, staying abreast of the news, and was blessed moreover
with a sharp eye for sizing up risks and opportunities: not for him the tedium
of coin-sifting and column-filling - even while serving time in the daftar, he
was careful to keep himself informed of other openings, never doubting that he
would one day chance upon a field of enterprise that was better suited to his
talents. He thinks that the export trade between Western India and China was
growing very fast, and offered all kinds of opportunities - not just of profit
but also of travel, escape and excitement. But he knew that to persuade the
Mistrie’s to enter this arena would not be easy; in matters of business they
were deeply conservative and disapproved of anything that smacked of
speculation. When Bahram first brought up the matter of entering the export
trade, his father-in-law had reacted with distaste: “What? Selling opium
overseas? That’s just gambling - it isn’t something that a firm like the
Mistries’ can get involved in “(River of
Smoke 51).
He told to his
father-in-law today the biggest profits don’t come from selling useful things:
quite the opposite. The profits come from selling things that are not of any
real use. Look at this new kind of white sugar that people are bringing from
China - this thing they call ‘cheeni’.
Is it any sweeter than honey or
palm-jaggery? No, but people pay twice as much for it or even more. Look at all
the money that people are making from selling rum and gin. Are these any better
than our own toddy and wine and sharaab? No, but people want them. Opium is
just like that. It is completely useless unless you’re sick, but still people
want it. And it is such a thing that once people start using it they can’t
stop; the market just gets larger and larger. That is why the British are
trying to take over the trade and keep it to themselves (River of Smoke 51).
He said to his
father-in-law fortunately in the Bombay Presidency they have not succeeded in
turning it into a monopoly, so there is no harm in making some money from it. Every
other shipyard maintains a small fleet, to engage in overseas trade; maybeit is
time for the Mistrie’s to set up an export division of their own. Look at the
returns that some other firms are getting of late, by exporting cotton and
opium: they have been doubling and even tripling their investments with every
consignment they send to China. If he gives him permission he will be glad to
make an exploratory voyage to Canton. After much discussion his father-in-law
allowed Bahram to go to China. For him, of all the surprises of that journey,
none was greater than that of the foreign enclave of Canton, where the traders
resided.
‘Fanqui-town’, as old hands called it,
was a place at once strangely straitened yet wildly luxurious; a place where
you were always watched and yet were free from the frowning scrutiny of your
family; a place where the female presence was strictly forbidden, but where
women would enter your life in ways that were utterly unexpected: it was thus
that Bahram, while still in his twenties, found himself gloriously and
accidentally entangled with Chi-mei, a boat-woman who gave him a son - a child
who was all the more dear to him because his existence could never be
acknowledged in Bombay (River of Smoke
52).
Mr. Bahram Modi a Parsi man and
Chi-mei a Chinese woman have an illegal son Ah Fatt. Ah Fatt a half-Chinese boy
lived in Canton found out in his boyhood that he had connections, relatives, in
faraway Bombay. As a child he had been told that he was an orphan that his
mother and father had died when he was a newborn, and that he was being brought
up by his widowed Eldest Aunt Chi-mei - his Yee Ma. This was the story that was
told to everyone who knew them, on the Canton waterfront and in Fanqui-town.
Mr. Bahram Modi whom they called Uncle Barry, his Kai-Yeh had been his father’s
employer and after his parents’ death he had felt a great obligation to their
orphaned child; this was the reason that he gave Yee Ma money for his upkeep,
and brought presents for him from India, and paid for his teachers and
tutors. We
should take cognizance of Ah Fatt’s other name Freddy as this signifies the
duality of his identity. Ah Fatt is rarely used by Bahram Moddie; he always
calls him Freddy, a non-Chinese name. Ah Fatt’s real identity was based on the
area he was born in. In China he was called by his Chinese name - Ah Fatt and
in India and some other places he was called Freddy and Fremji Moddie.
Yee
Ma did not encourage Uncle Barry’s ambitions for the boy: she did not approve
of spending so much money on such things. To arrange schooling for a boat-child
was no easy matter and Uncle Barry had to pay generously to organize it: he
wanted the boy to be literate in Classical Chinese as well as schoolroom
English; he wanted him to grow up respectable, to become a gentil-man, who
would be able to move easily with the merchants of Fanqui-town, impressing them
with his sporting talents as well as his knowledge. Yee Ma could not see the
point of all this: she would have preferred that Uncle Barry give her the money
and leave the boy alone. She thinks;
What use was calligraphy to him when
boat-people were banned by law from sitting for the Civil Service examinations?
What was he to do with boxing and riding lessons when boat-people were barred
even from building houses ashore? She wanted him to grow up like any
boat-child, learning to fish and sail and handle boats (River of Smoke 89).
Here Ghosh wants
to explore that in lack of good education and other essential facilities the
boat children’s development would not possible and they entered in the world of
crime easily. Yee Ma in her dreams if not in her waking state must have
accepted that he was not really a boat-child for she often had nightmares in
which the boy was attacked by a dragon-fish - a sturgeon. As a result she would
not let him in the water. Like other boat-children Ah Fatt grew up with a bell
attached to his ankle, so his family could always keep track of him; like them
he had to sit in a barrel when the boat was moving; like them, he had a wooden
board tied to his back, so that he would float if he fell in. But the other
children lost their boards and bells when they were two or three - Ah Fatt’s
stayed on till long afterwards, making him a target of mockery. On the Canton
waterfront little boys would earn money by diving in the river to amuse the
Aliens, fishing out the coins and trinkets they threw in the water. Ah Fatt too
wanted to do these things, to swim with the boat-children, to dive and earn
coins - but to him alone, these things were strictly forbidden because of the
spectre of the lurking dragon-fish.
Ah Fatt told to
Neel that the pun-tei i.e. the
land-people mocks us and say we have fins instead of feet. Sometimes Ah Fatt
also goes to dive for coins with others when Yee Ma was not there. Then one day
she find out, and she pull him from the water. Beat him, shaming in front of
everyone. So much shame, he think throw him in the river, and if dragon-fish
comes, that is also good.
“I think: she doing this because I have
no parents. I think: if I her child, she not beat like this. I think: better
run away. I make plans, I speak with beggar-men, but Older Sister find out.
Then she tells me everything: that Yee Ma not aunt, but Mother. That ‘Uncle
Barry’ not kai-yeh, but Father” (River of
Smoke 90).
Next time when
Mr. Barry come Ah Fatt asked to him was this true that he was his father and
Yee Ma was mother? At first, he said no this was not true but finally he said
that yes, all was true and he has other family in Bombay. Ah Fatt was very
shocked by this incident. He said to Neel that;
When I small, we live in boat like this
one; we also poor people, like these. Just poor boat-people, sometime no food,
we eat wind. Then one day I hear my father hou-gwai, rich man, rich White-Hat Devil. Now I think I know why
my mother beat me - I not real China-yan, I her secret shame, but still she
need me, because of money Father gives. I read in books that “Western Island”
-India have gold and magic and I want to go - I want fly there like Monkey
King. But this is in my head my feet in kitchen-boat where I live. So when I
hear of Father’s ship, Anahita,
I am mad to see it (River of Smoke
90).
After seeing
Anhita a luxurious ship of his father Ah Fatt became very anxious and wants to
know more about India. Ah Fatt left his family in Canton and went to Lintin
Island in fast-crab. There he meets Dai-Lou, a big opium-sailor and he joined
him. Ah Fatt told to Neel that Dia-Lou had many boys like him to work for him;
he likes to hire his kind i.e.:
Jaahp-júng-jai-‘mixed-kind-boy’.
Many like that along Pearl River -in Macau, Whampoa, and Guangzhou. In any
port, any place where man can buy woman, there is many yeh-jai and ‘West-ocean-child’. They too must eat and live. Dai
Lou give us work, treat us well. For long time he like real Elder Brother to
me. But then we have trouble (River of
Smoke 92).
So he had to
left Canton and run away. Dai-Lou have a woman not wife but a concubine. She
was very beautiful. Her name was Adeline. Adeline was also salt prawn-food like
me: she was also half Cheeni and half Achha (Hindustani). He said that Achha
means good or all right but it is opposite in Gwong-jou-talk. Here Ah-chaa
means bad man. Her mother was from Goa but lives in Macau. Her father was
Chinese, from Canton. Adeline was very attractive; she also likes smoke opium.
When Dai Lou travels, he tells him to look after Adeline. Sometime she asks to
him bite the cloud with her. “We both half-Achha, but never seen India. We talk
about India, about her mother, my father. And then…” (River of Smoke 93).
They became
lovers and his boss found out. Just like countries have laws, gaa have rules.
He knows Dai Lou try to kill him so he hides with mother. Then he hears
hing-dai come for him, so he runs away. Go to Macau, and pretend to be
Christian, hide in seminary. Then they send him to Serampore, in Bengal and
Adelina killed herself.
This is the
tragic story of two persons who were deprived of their family’s love and care
comes to an end. Here the true picture of racial hybridity is clear. The
illicit romance between Bahram Modi and Chi-mei is strong enough to challenge
ethnic, linguistic and cultural barriers; the only image that comes to his mind
while he is endangered is that of Chi-mei rather than his lawful wife and
daughters. This “lob-pidgin” (River of
Smoke 74) love story seems to prove that language and culture prove no
strong barriers as far as human bonding is concerned.
Thus through the
character of Bahram we find the male psyche of freedom and existence. Bahram an
imaginative, freedom lover, entrepreneur soul, wants his own identity and
establish himself as a businessman who transport traders to the opium market
place with the ship Anhita. He was married and had two daughters but for
fulfilling his motives he started as the owner of a new business of opium
traders who transport opium during post-colonial era. During his visit to China
Bahram had illicit relationship with Chi Mee and had a son from this relation
named Ah Fatt. Through my paper I highlight the problems and the poor condition
faced by subalterns like Chi-mei, Ah Fatt and Adeline who sometimes for money,
in lack of education and unawareness about rights suffer a lot in their life.
Works
Cited
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Amitav. River of Smoke. New Delhi:
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the Ibis Trilogy." The American Historical
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Ghosh,
Amitav. River of Smoke. John Murray,
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Painting Canton as a Queer Space in Amitav Ghosh's River of Smoke (2011)
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