4.2 Amitav Ghosh: Highlighting The Reality Of Climate Change

Find out how he revolutionizes the way we write about the environment, starting with the story of the nutmeg!

In this special episode, Tara and Michelle dissect the work of award-winning author Amitav Ghosh and chat with him about his latest book “The Nutmeg’s Curse”. 

Amitav Ghosh says, “climate change is a form of ecological violence.” He shares his research process and his inspirations: from Mahasweta Devi to Herman Melville. How is writing about climate change different in fiction and nonfiction? How did Tara meet Amitav when she was 13 years old? What is he writing about next? Tune in to meet the man behind the legend! 

Indian authors who write about nature and the environment:

• Jahnavi Barua
• Shubhangi Swaroop
• Janaki Lenin
• Sumana Roy 
• Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. He studied at the universities of Delhi and Oxford, has taught at a number of institutions and written for many magazines. The first novel in the Ibis trilogy, Sea of Poppies, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008. In 2015, Amitav Ghosh was named as a finalist of the Man Booker International Prize. Read his latest book: https://www.amazon.in/Nutmegs-Curse-Amitav-Ghosh/dp/1529369436

'Books and Beyond with Bound' is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D'costa of Bound talk to some of the best writers in India and find out what makes them tick. Brought to you by Bound. Read more: https://boundindia.com/books-and-beyond-podcast/ 

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‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

Transcript

Michelle .  00:03

Hi, everyone, I'm Michelle. 

Tara  00:07

Hi, I'm Tara, welcome back to our podcast Books and Beyond bound, where we speak to India's finest authors and find out what makes them tick.

Michelle .  00:15

Iran hire editors, podcasters, storytellers. And through bound, we help you create stories and put them out into the world.

Tara  00:23

So we also want to announce that we have started these amazing conversations on WhatsApp groups which are owned by bound. It's called bound writer's circle. And our link is in the show notes. You can join this Whatsapp group for conversations all about reading and writing lots of resources, and more. We have engagements every week. And we have different kinds of activities that we do on this group. So it's a really good resource for anyone who likes reading or writing. Some of our members are also long listed for the total award. So there's a really great community out there, make sure to join the WhatsApp group.

Michelle .  01:00

And another group, which is called port score, which is all about podcasting. And some of our members in the groups are from different fields like film, dance art. So do join us if you don't want to miss out on the fun links are in the show. All

Tara  01:14

right, let's get to today's episode. Somebody I can't believe that we got on this podcast. Michelle and I have been he he's been on our wish list forever. And we're interviewing Amata gosh, oh my god. So since we've announced in this episode, both our DMS and bound DMS have been flooded with questions from fans and we hope to answer some of those questions. I'm going to introduce him though he needs no introduction. But for those of you who don't know, just how accomplished this man is. He's on the Padma Shri, the Gan pita ward to lifetime achievement awards for honorary doctorates. He's written over 17, massively research and nuance books. And I think that all his books make readers stop and question themselves. And some of his books have definitely changed the way I think about literature. What about your mission?

Michelle .  02:08

Yeah, that I do, we have to keep keep a track of his accomplishments, you know, as the years go by, because there's a lot lot more that he has to achieve. He He's so prolific, he comes out with work almost, you know, every few years. And I do like how his books have made me you know, think about climate change, especially how, you know, climate changes is slowly deteriorating the Sundarbans because it's a recurring feature in his work, or why do we even need to write about climate change? I think all of these things. I mean, his work has made me think about all of these things different.

Tara  02:41

I especially want to talk about how we write about climate change, because he is particularly talking about how writing about climate change has to have a paradigm shift. So I will give you an example of you know, first I'll, I'll tell you guys a little bit about his thesis, and then I'd want to get into his writing style, because we both have so much to say about that. So what he says essentially, in his books is that the way that we have to think about writing about climate change has to differ. Because what he is saying is that, you know, and we must have all seen this is that either climate change is in the form of dystopian fiction, or it's nonfiction sort of Bill Gates's manual, or things like that. But is there literature or literary fiction that engages with climate change as if it's a reality and not some dystopian future? And that's sort of what we wanted to deconstruct today, we wanted to deconstruct the whole idea of climate change and climate writing. And, you know, you can see this climate thesis in his books as far back as the hungry tide. So in the hungry tide, there is a scene in which, you know, and the Hungry Tiger is a book that in which nature is the protagonist, where, you know, it brings alive a world in which you know, it's not so much character driven, as is the nature is the thing that is driving the whole story forward. And that's what he really tries to do in his writing is he tries to bring out nature in this way. So there is a scene in Hungary tight there's a scene in which there is a cyclone, that is ravaging the Sunderbans, and as Michelle mentioned, a lot of his work does, does center around climate change in the Sunderbans, that is a scene in which there is a cyclone ravaging the Sunderbans. And there are two people, one is PA, a researcher, and there is the person who is helping her who's a local of the Sunderbans and they take refuge in a tree trunk, and all the while things are flowing all over the place there is flooding. And they don't know what's happening. And there's a moment of the underfitting where they look across and on another tree trunk, they see a tiger and the moment they look at the tiger is the same moment, the tiger looks at them and they both just look at each other. And the tiger is just watching it steal. Right now this isn't fantasy, it's not dystopia. It's not not Russian, it's

Michelle .  05:20

very can't be labeled are very much

Tara  05:23

bringing nature to life. It's having nature be part of the narrative. And what he also mentions is that, you know, maybe writers are afraid of writing about things like cyclones, or like looking at a lion or a tiger, because they do maybe sometimes come across as as tropes. But what he does is his writing his he makes all of these things very plausible, because they are plausible part of our lives, we cannot deny that all of us and some people in more particular are affected in the day to day lives by climate change. That is what is really pushing foreigners, right.

Michelle .  05:58

Yeah. No. Antara the way you narrated that see, and I just wish you would have gotten your love to listen to the rest of the book as well. Super today. Actually, we know, though, we are gonna deconstruct all of this, and we are going to talk about climate change as well. We actually spoke to him about his latest book that not makes course, which tells us how, you know, the climate crisis has been brewing since long. It's not a recent thing. Since our lands were invaded since we were, you know, colonial eyes. And he tells all of this through the lens of a nutmeg. How creative,

Tara  06:29

okay, I like been following climate change as is. I'm sure all of you guys. Right. So the moment the book came out, and yet another book that talks about climate change, I definitely had to buy it.

Michelle .  06:40

Yeah. And I remember you playing with RSA in Russia, you know, this is what we need right? Now. This is like a Bible for anyone who wants to really understand, you know, how it has gotten so bad. Oh, yeah. And it's also made me more aware of writing around climate change, because Because honestly, I have, you know, not been following, at least consciously keeping a track of conversations of climate because it makes me very anxious thinking about how bad it has become thinking about how worse it's gonna get. So, but this book really made me feel comfortable just because of the way he has narrated the story, like, like, it really made me understand, you know, what we've been through, and it made me realize that it's important to follow it no matter how uncomfortable it makes, you

Tara  07:25

know, definitely like we all have to push each other out of our comfort zones. Yeah, I wanna ask you, you know, I want this episode to be something where we focus on one, the paradigm shift that we speak about and how, you know, people are approaching climate writing. And the second, the second section will obviously be about, you know, read featuring Amitav Kosha. So, I hope that you guys, you know, really enjoy the section about Amitav, who should we actually recorded this part of the episode, after we spoke to Amitav push, because we got so many more ideas about how to think about climate change, and how evil to deconstruct, you know, all the things that we've learned from him through this interview and through writing. So here goes. Michelle, you, you talked about how you were not aware. And like because of Amidon who became a little more well, a little less anxious. So how has that journey been for you? And where are you at now?

Michelle .  08:24

Oh, wow. Yes. So also Tara, you know, our conversations, before recording with him while we were, you know, discussing the script while we were reading his book, and all of that, I think that also made me a little more comfortable to venture out and read more about it. Right. So when I was actually consciously looking for work about it, I came across this anthology of poetry, or, you know, I know that Amitav Ghosh actually talks about literary fiction, but, but I'm also more interested in in seeing how writers engage with with climate change and other forms, right. So I came across a very, very, I would say eye opening anthology, it's called Open your eyes itself, where a lot of poets have written about climate change and and that anthology is just about that. So I think it is also called Eco poetry, which is, which is our GA in which a lot of poets engage with nowadays. And I also recently wrote a poem around which will appear in in Silver Birch Press. So luckily, it got accepted. And you know, the idea behind the series there is that the journal wanted all of the poems to come to notice of Greta tunberg Because of the whole kop 26 summit that recently happened, and you know, everyone has been talking about it. So what they wanted to do was they wanted her to know that there are artists who also engage with this at a at a very creative level. So you know,

Tara  09:47

hoping that that's interesting that you know, like, yeah, and from somebody who is not engaging with the subject to now because of these conversations, actually actively participating and writing through and that is quite, you know, I'm sure that Otago should be proud.

Michelle .  10:05

Yeah, like I myself, you know, I can't believe that this changes happened because I was always a silent spectator. And now I'm happy that I'm at least doing my bit even though if if it is just just, you know, maybe it's just a creative endeavor, or maybe it's not gonna change something, but I do feel a little better than before. Okay, so now that I've shared, you know, my relationship with climate change, and the way it's covered, um, we're also going to be discussing or literature around climate change, right, the different tropes the way our meta, of course, covers it the way other writers cover it. But before that, Tara, I want to know, what's your relationship to climate change? Okay, yeah.

Tara  10:42

So, you know, I always sort of, unlike you, Michelle, you know, I've always sort of engaged with this topic and trying to figure out what I can do. So ever since I was a kid, I've always sort of been interested in it, like, even from like the Captain Planet, and all of these things, because we're taught how things are changing in school, right, and we see it right in front of our eyes, we hear all these stories in the news, and we see it, and you don't know how the future is going to be. But my relationship has actually changed over time. Because the more that I read about it, the more that I find, you know, people are doing such amazing things with technology. You know, there is a company that is replacing plastic with algae. You know, there's so many companies that are renewable, in India itself that we know, you know, right from organic soap, so many more people are aware. So my view has changed a lot since then, because I see the awareness that is happening. And I do believe that, you know, maybe we will be able to transition into an economy that is sustainable green, maybe one day, they're the airplanes in which you know, you can choose an airplane, which is completely Net Zero. Can you imagine that? So that is when my

Michelle .  12:00

Oh, wow. Okay, so that does that does make me feel a little better than I did some time back.

Tara  12:08

So yeah, like, obviously, like we discussed how Amitav Horsh talks about climate change in a certain way and what he prescribes for climate writing, but I wanted to know, you know, are other writers following this sort of prescription? You know, are they are, are there any other writers engaging with climate change in similar realistic ways that are maybe not dystopian or maybe not nonfiction? What is you know, Amitav was also rejects the face CLI CLI fi, and we want to take that apart a bit. So you really want to dissect this whole topic. So let's start with you know, what other writers do you think Michelle engage with nature and fiction in a way that that is sort of in tandem with the realism in which Amitav cush is propagating the feature these things?

Michelle .  12:59

Oh, okay, that really does make me think quite a bit, but I will say the first writers that come to my mind, Tara are Northeastern writers. So one writer is janhvi Barua, who wrote her recent book is called under tow. But I have been working. But I have been following her work for quite some time, actually, since I was studying in Bangor way back in 2013. And one common thread that runs throughout her book is the Brahmaputra River. Oh, I just I love reading about it. You know, the way she writes about it, Tara is this quiet calmness, that the water holds and the way the water gives life to the to the novel itself, right, like, look at the metaphor. I mean, we know that the river gives life to a lot of, you know, fish organisms and to the ecosystem around it. But apart from that, I think it gives life to her novels itself.

Tara  13:47

Yeah, I mean, because of you, I read Undertow, and that the title itself, and the river plays such a neat job. It's such an important part in a way that that I don't think we've seen much and I think that she's one of those underrated writers that people need to know more about, you know, an ambush. As, you know, we need more writing like this. I want to say, Hey, look at this book.

Michelle .  14:09

Yeah, no. And she's, you're right. When you say she's underrated, she's also the, by the way, she's also the judge for the Commonwealth Short Fiction Prize this year, and I was really happy because you always, you know, you want such kind of works to reach a wider audience. Right. And I think I think now that she's a judge also, you know, a lot of people who are submitting will read up on her work. So yes, oh, you know, this is we recommend her work to all of you, but there are there were other Indian writers that you were telling me about as well. Right.

Tara  14:39

Yeah. So before we go on to the other Indian writers, I want to speak a little bit about this whole thing of climate fiction. So what is climate fiction? And why does AMITA Bosch have an issue with it? And also, you know, what climate fiction is climate fiction driven neither bad and what transaction have weeded so

Michelle .  15:04

yeah so on okay so my my thoughts on the on the whole genre Tara is I've you know recently been reading about it and what I've understood from it is that it always involves this dystopia, right dystopia or utopia right? So you so you always imagine something weather where things are just the worst, where you just can't come back from from something like this or like the apocalypse. And I think you will have more to say about the apocalypse. But all of these books which which are, you know, labeled as climate fiction, they usually have such words. And I think what Amitav Ghosh meant is that, you know, this is not dystopia. This is reality, right. So when when when he's encouraging people to write about climate, he what he means is you write it as if it's happening, right? If as if it's real, it's not an imagined world.

Tara  15:54

What do you think about this? Do you think that climate change this version of life? I, you know, what do you think about this, we're not happy about it?

Michelle .  16:04

So, um, I'd say in general, I stay away from from dystopian books, because it makes me you know, like you said, it makes you a little fatalistic audit, it makes you I would say, a little pessimistic about the way things are. So I generally stay away from this, because I think it takes the whole thing to a whole different level, you know, by exaggerating it. But I do think there are benefits to having the genre. So if somebody is consciously looking to understand, for example, what kind of effect the global warming is going to have on our planet, right, like, like in the near future, I think it's really good to create awareness around it. But I also see what Amitav Ghosh means. I also see I understand what he means that if you box it into a genre, that means that every every everything else that we write, right, like realistic fiction, they have nothing to do with climate, it's just, it's just writing about nature here. And there. It's just writing about, you know, maybe trees and plants and, and calling that, you know, and just uncovering the hole of climate through that. So I do see both sides of the story. And I do see the, you know, the pros and cons of each of them. What about you? Or what do you think? And then have you read any your Wi Fi book?

Tara  17:15

I see what you're saying about, you know, seeing like it through a sci fi lens. Yeah. And it was very interesting that Amitav who spoke about, you know, when people think of literary fiction, they think of literary fiction as a particular paradigm in a very sort of person paradigm, as the person's internal journey. You know, it's always about that. But why can read fiction be about something different than that? Why can't read fiction have nature as its core? If you put nature at its core? Why does it immediately become climate fiction? And I do agree with that stereotyping, in a way, because a lot of really amazing books that, you know, might be touted as at fiction make go into that zone just because of the way publishers market and sell. So I think we need to make a very clear distinction between something that is clearly a dystopian world. An example of a dystopian world is I read a book called The Age of Miracles, where in the book, basically, it's centered around the premise that a day keeps increasing. So the sun keeps setting half an hour later every day. And the whole world's ecosystem, major crops, everything falls about now, that is very clearly not rooted in reality. And that is very clearly a dystopia. And it should thus be categorized as such. However, if a person uses a trope of a flood, or cyclone, or any of these things that you know, some people say, you know, truth is more fantastical than fiction, right? So if those elements are included, they should not be treated as tropes. I think I agree with that. Because, you know, those elements should be incorporated in books more. Another very good example of this is Shubhangi swoops latitudes of longing in which the book is set in the Andamans. And it said, you know, it's centered around a tsunami. And that takes center stage. You know, so it's both the characters and tsunami. So struggles don't always have to be internal for something to be called literary fiction. And that I think, would be sort of very interesting if we saw more books like that.

Michelle .  19:45

Yeah, you're right that you mentioned the plot of, you know, Age of Miracles, right when the sun sets on later. It actually reminded me of what happens in the west around this time, around November, December, right in the West, obviously, it gets colder and then there's less of sunlight and I found this, I found this concept fascinating when I found out, you know that they actually pushed back their clocks by half an hour to one hour to get more sunlight in the day. So I think I'm gonna pick up that book because it definitely sounds really interesting. Yeah, and another Indian writer that came to mind when you spoke about Shubhangi Swaroop is Janicki Lenin, and we actually interviewed her earlier because her book covers each, you know, creature, each wildlife creature in in a very different way, which I haven't read before. Like, like, you know, I think you do know, and our listeners know that I love stories about wildlife about, you know, because I love watching the Discovery Channel, I love watching National Geographic, that book for me was was really eye opening. So for example, there are whole chapters on you know, different creatures like like something about octopus or something about, you know, chimpanzees or about insects, for example. So I feel that, you know, even though it's a nonfiction book, right, if people read it, for example, once they start becoming comfortable with, with reading more about nature, be it animals, be it you know, trees, and when we talk about trees, another book comes to mind is by Sumana, Roy, and the book is how to become a tree. So if you haven't read that, please do. And I think books that engage with wildlife and botany in such a way, will get readers closer to nature, at least closer than what they currently are.

Tara  21:22

Oh, yeah, completely. That's such a good point that you made. And another book, now that we're talking about all these books, books are just flowing into my head. Another book that comes into mind is the signature of all things by Elizabeth Gilbert. And it's his beautiful historical fiction book. It's about this character who was born in the 1890s. And she is obsessed with botany. She's a botanist. And it's actually about how she's basically studies the evolution of mankind, you know, and it traces that and it really takes you through this fantastic ride into nature. And that was one of the lovely nature client books that I really enjoyed. Yeah, and,

Michelle .  22:07

you know, all of these conversations around, you know, different forms that are like, even like I was mentioning nonfiction, right. So recently, at the COP, 26 summit, I was also quite intrigued by this panel that they had on journalism on climate because, you know, we do when we are talking about literature, it does involve, you know, nonfiction as well. And I feel journalists are doing a brilliant job. So there are specific journalists to cover specific, you know, things about the environment, and they keep asking for more people to join, you know, it's a free registration, they say, you know, please join, I think, I think it's a brilliant way to make, like your honors, yeah. Can

22:45

you give some examples of this?

Michelle .  22:47

Yeah, so So what I learned from that was that there are journalists who dedicate their entire career to just covering climate, right. So for example, it could be just how the way water has been disappearing, or just the way the glaciers have been melting, for example. So, you know, that would be a niche for one journalists, career and another journalists would cover something entirely else, you know, for example, maybe, maybe how forests are disappearing. Right? So I mean, there's a lot to cover in climate and I feel that these journalists are doing a really good job because because journalism is also about reporting things as they are, you know, from from from these places. So it's like a real time on reporters, which I, which I really liked. And another thing I noticed that I was read, because I was, you know, reading a lot upon the cop, 26 summit, and I saw that there are very young Indians, you know, for fighting for, for climate change. So there was this article by Al Jazeera, where they've covered five Indians who were doing something in their own way to help the climate, you know, I think that's just it's very inspiring. Yeah, so, one among the five was this girl Ridhima Pandey okay. So she's actually from ultra Khan. And through her work, she she, you know, she brings awareness to what exactly happened in Ultra culture there was this, you know, a cloudburst that happened which triggered a floods, landslides. You must have read about it. It was all over the news. And, and she is a relentless person who just wants to, you know, to make the world a better place. And I think I think, as they say, the change starts at home. She's trying to do that in Luthra con from her homeland. Inspiring. So she raises awareness. So what she does is you know, she she does this tree planting dries that she's even she's reached out she's written letters to everybody, including, you know, the prime minister, and she's, she's honestly she's just a high school student who's trying to do her best or through any medium through letters through through you know, planting more dreams to attending seminars. She's only 14 that are like when I was 14, I don't know. I wasn't aware of a lot of things but I'm so happy that that you know, millennials are doing something Due to change,

Tara  25:00

yeah, actually, you know, my whole interest in climate changes is come about because of these amazing stories. These journalists, you know, cover different beats, they go to different places, they, you know, excavate these stories that wouldn't be excavated. And there's so much material actually out there to collate. So yes, there are people doing fantastic.

Michelle .  25:21

Yeah. So, you know, we all, you know, have heard about these journalists, we know about these journalists, Tara, but what has happened to me is, after I've been following all these conversations, I have now bookmarked these journalists work, and I'm consciously following each of their works. And I just can't wait to see what's next. You know, of course, that is making me a little more anxious. But I do feel that being aware helps. Oh,

Tara  25:44

definitely. And it just like, it just makes me think, you know, as an editor, about all the stories that are yet to be written all the books that are yet to be written, there's so much research that these people are doing, you know, the story of this little girl that you said, yes, so inspiring. There are books, you know, coming to nonfiction, we spoke a little bit about the wildlife book, and important nature is we spoke about journalism, we spoke about these stories of activism. But I also want to speak now about, you know, the nonfiction books, which are sort of manuals. So there's a lot of there are a few manuals that are out by different publishers about how to live maybe a zero waste life or how to be a climate warrior. That is for the individual, then there are books, you know, like the Bill Gates book about systems now I understand, you know, the systems books, obviously, but the books that are catered for individuals, what do you think of them? For me see,

Michelle .  26:43

if we if you don't talk about the self help rendre Tara, for me, they have not really work because maybe because I am a big fiction fan. So when I look at nonfiction for me, I usually like narrative nonfiction, which are which are like stories. So yes, if you're trying to give me advice, if you're trying to tell me probably there are better things to do better ways to live. If you tell me that through a story, I would, I would really, you know, like that, but that is just me. But I do feel that India, especially. And I think there are stats to prove it, that India loves the self help genre, right. People do love inspiring tales, people people are, I think conscious or self aware that, that they need to bring out some change in their life in order to be more healthier in order to make the world a better place. So yes, I do think self help genres. Help, right? Yeah. So are talking about books for individual, Sarah, I think one book that I would recommend is bare essentials, because it it also tells you you know, what kind of products could be harmful to the environment, what you can do in your own way to make things better. So yes, there are books that are changing.

Tara  27:49

I mean, definitely in on this, the fact that we didn't have these books before and now we do is a win. Of Wow, this

Michelle .  27:55

has made me think so much. And I think that and I can talk about this for hours and hours. Right? Because because there's a lot more to learn a lot more to to absorb, I feel but we do hope that this conversation today that covered you know different genres, right? So be it poetry, be it fiction, be it nonfiction and the way climate change has been written in all of these forms, and the way Amitav Ghosh has been vouching for a change and literary fiction. We do hope that all of these things have made you think at least have made you a little more conscious or a little more aware of climate change and what we are going through. So yeah, please do write in with any insights that you might have that we might do to become better individuals and make this you know the world a better place. Now let's speak to Amitav Ghosh and find out more about his process so yours our interview with him welcome,

Amitav Ghosh  28:54

thank you so much. Thank you for having me. And thank you for your very generous with

Tara  28:58

your latest book, The nutmeg stores, weaves in history, colonialism, migrations, superstition, and much more to tell us a sort of origin story of our current climate crisis. And as you know, a millennial am surely really always been really interested in this very urgent issue. So why did you choose the lens of the nutmeg tell us the origin story,

Amitav Ghosh  29:21

the story of nutmeg? I take it as a kind of analogy for what is happening in the world right now. You know, the nutmeg was a the nutmeg tree was a sort of miraculous plant or miraculous botanical entity that existed only on these tiny islands, you know, and and their surroundings. In Maluku, which is now part of Indonesia. And for millennia, that nutmeg, the nutmeg tree brought wealth and prosperity, you know, to these islands and the islanders, they became you know, great entrepreneurs' sailing across the Indian Ocean and so on. But ultimately, what happened is that the Dutch arrived, and they wanted to gain complete control of the nutmeg trade. So what did they do? They basically just wiped out all the islanders. So in the end, the islanders were destroyed because of their miraculous free, I don't think in many ways, you know, one can read that, as an analogy for what happened to our planet, you know, we were given, we were given a beautiful planet, which is full of all kinds of miraculous things. It's the only planet in our galaxy galaxy so far as we know, that can nurture life. And now we have a we've really set about destroying this, this, this marvelous planet that we were gifted with, you know, so the nutmeg, you know, the Banda Island was one of the earliest examples of what's now known as the resource curse, you know, that is a resource that ultimately creates, you know, devastation around it, as, for example, has happened with with oil in Iraq, or Libya. And, you know, in the same way, the the vast the gift of the earth have really now been exploited to a point where the whole earth is becoming subject to the resource curse,

Michelle .  31:16

right? And that's really, really heartbreaking. And I think I will never see the nutmeg. You know, in the same way again, after reading your book out, Geno's, all the chapters in your book are obviously really, really impactful. But I think the very first chapter that sets the course of the book, which is a lamp falls, is one of my favorite, because you talk about this one small incident of a lamp falling and how it changes the course of history. And you spoken about how you were haunted by this particular incident, you know, while you were in Brooklyn, during the pandemic, amidst all these ambulance sirens and writing it so can you narrate this parable for our listeners? And what did it really feel like writing this book or mix the pandemic,

Amitav Ghosh  31:58

it was a very, very strange time. And I mean, you've lived through the pandemic, as well. So you will be aware of how strange this time was, you know? So, it was a very strange thing. I was just completely, you know, I was in my study, I was in my home, and, you know, everything was changing in the world around us. You could certainly tell, I mean, New York City, and especially Brooklyn is a very lively vivacious place. And suddenly, everything went quiet, you know, on the street outside, you could hear a dog bark from blocks away, except for when the ambulances were racing through. And that was happening constantly, you know, all through the night and day, and my house is not very far from one of Brooklyn's largest hospitals. And outside that hospital, at that point, there were refrigerated trucks, you know, for all the bodies of the dead, because they were, they were so many. So it was a very eerie, strange time, you know, and the time of also great fear, you know, as you will remember, also, from your own experience of the pandemic. But, you know, fortunately for me, I had been planning to write this book for a long time. But I had other projects I just finished. So I just finished writing my book, Django, NAMA, you know, in early March, and then, just as the lockdown started, I started, I started work on what ultimately became the not makes very little is actually known about what happened in the Banda islands on those days. But I first learned about what happened there from a book by a very, very short book by an American historian. And that's where I read about the lamp polling. And it really caught my attention. And I thought, well, you know, how does the falling of a lamp lead to this lead to this calamity. And then I, I really wanted to see, you know, what had happened in more in greater detail. And I discovered that, in fact, the only book that really addresses this history is a book written by a Dutch archivist from the late 19th century. And it was a book written in Dutch, but he had, he had accents, he had access to, you know, all the 17th century documents, and he put together a very detailed account of what happened by suddenly, you know, an impulse, I did a Google search, and I found a PDF of the Dutch book, but there it was, so, you know, the book arrives on my computer, I print it out, I look at it, but it's in Dutch, I can't read it, you know, because I don't read that. So what I did, suddenly, just on an impulse, you know, I type, you know, some some of the duck sentences into a translation app. And then mysteriously, you know, miraculously something comprehensible appeared, you know, and then I began to do this, more and more, you know, spending hours, the days you know, just typing in paragraph of page after page of this Dutch book until I was able to piece together with help from some historian In French,

Tara  35:00

and I love the way that you describe this in the book was this the most challenging part of researching this book not having access to the language,

Amitav Ghosh  35:07

really, because it was just so frustrating, you know, that I couldn't read this, that I couldn't read this book, because and, but, you know, I've dealt with many languages. So I didn't allow myself to be intimidated, you know, I just thought, if I persevere, I'll be able to, I'll be able to do it.

Michelle .  35:23

Right. And I think it's also a very intellectual challenge, in a way that that, you know, pushes you on forward. So, you know, you've your book addresses, so many violent ways in which Europeans have invaded, you know, lots of places and how they've stripped all these places of their original inhabitants. Right. And one shocking fact that I learned, you know, being a Catholic was how, the Lord Chancellor of England, so Francis Bacon, and he justifies all these massages on these islands. And he says, you know, it must have been weighed by God, which is, which is really shocking. So I wanted to know, what were the facts that you discovered, during this book that were really shocking to you,

Amitav Ghosh  36:04

you know, when I got into the historical sources about what had happened in, in during the colonization of the Americas, you know, when you look at the actual details of how, you know, how that whole colonization played out, it's just unbelievable. I mean, the scale of the violence is absolutely unbelievable, you know, because I mean, 70 to 90% of the populations of the indigenous populations were just wiped out, you know, through this extraordinary sort of orgies of violence, you know, and it's kind of its kind of appalling thing, because, you know, when in our history books, in our textbooks, whatever. And in popular culture, when people think of terrible, terrible violence, or they almost always say that, you know, they say, the immediate is always of the Genghis Khan, you know, Genghis Khan, when he was so violent, and so on, but in fact, Genghis Khan never exterminated people in order to grab their resources. He never wiped out cultures, or, you know, flourished in cultures, as happened in the Americas. In fact, Genghis Khan, and his descendants were very good at assimilating, you know, I mean, there are a couple of generations of Genghis Khan, one of his, one of his grandchildren was the was the emperor was the Shah, of Persia, and the other was the emperor of China, you know, and they were, they were both completely completely assimilated in those cultures, you know, so really what happened, I think, in the, in the 16th century, in the Americas, in the 16th and 17th centuries, it's something unprecedented, you know, it's a rupture in history, you know, and we can see that the scale of that violence really has no matcher, anywhere, anywhere, honestly. But also, I do think it's important, you know, to, to understand that climate change, and the way that it is unfolding is also a kind of violence, you know, it's, it's the kind of mediated violence, if you like that, that also unfolded in the Americas, the violence of the Americas was, was also a particular type. You know, it was not like the violence of the Second World War, you know, where you kill people with, with machine guns and stuff like that, that technology didn't exist, then. So a large part of the violence, of the colonization of the Americas actually unfolds via the environment, you know, environmental changes, actually wipe out people's ways of life. So the environment itself becomes, as it were, an instrument of violence. And this is what we are seeing today, you know, the environment again, has become, as it were, and instrumental violence, safe for the people in Bengal, you know, who are losing their lands who are losing their lives, you know, to rising waters and intensifying cyclones. A climate change is not a thing of, you know, greenhouse gas emissions and, or any of those policy. You know, policy decisions are that they talk about climate change is a kind of war, you know, they're confronting a form of ecological violence,

Tara  39:22

and it's so visceral, you know, the changes that we are seeing the changes that some people have to deal with on a day to day basis. And I'm really interested in, you know, in in grid arrangements, you wrote about this paradigm shift, which really made me think very differently about literature today, you said that there needs to be change that literature needs to change the way climate is written, you know, versus focusing on the individual narrative. And Michelle and I were discussing and you know, we try to think of books in which climate was sort of front and center, or the plot vehicle, and all of the names that We came up with either climate was discussed in a way in which the genre was dystopian, or it was, like nonfiction, where it's, you know, the latest Bill Gates book, which is suggestions and all of those things. So yeah, that was such an interesting paradigm shift. So for our listeners, and aspiring writers, can you tell us how you feel fiction should address climate change? You mentioned one way is to give voice to non human entities. Can you elaborate on that?

Amitav Ghosh  40:28

Yeah, I think that's really the problem, or, you know, the problem that arises in this period of the 17th century is that the earth comes to be thought of as dead, you know, by, by elite Westerners. And now, you know, across the world, our people have accepted this view that, you know, elite people have accepted this view that the earth is dead farmers and fishermen don't accept, accept this view at all, no do adivasis and so on, then the Earth is alive and the earth is filled with many kinds of beings, our devices in India, think of the forest as a as a living being, you know, and now we know that the forests of that forest are living beings, but you can't compensate for the loss of forests by planting trees somewhere else because a forest the interconnected the, you know, multi species, entities, you know, so for me, I do feel that you know, that the most difficult challenge facing us today is to do what, let's say our ancestors did with with ethics, like they like the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata and so on, which are filled, you know, with the voices of non human beings of many different kinds, you know, the Mamata begins with snakes and so on. Snakes are such an important part of the modality, you know, and so many other kinds of the, so I think it's really, that is the greatest challenge facing us today, how we write about these non human beings of various kinds. But let's not forget that actually, in modern India, in modern Indian literature, we do have writers who've done this, the greatest example is Marcia curry, you know, she was writing about advances a lot of the time, and, you know, and many of her books actually do this. I mean, they give agency and voice to a nonhumans I mean, like a famous story, pterodactyl, you know,

Michelle .  42:21

yeah, and another Adivasi writer that I'm reminded of his handstands. So Indra shaker, I absolutely love his writing. Because, again, you know, the of the stories are full of nature, everything comes to life. And and you don't usually see that, in stories that are set in, in, in urban spaces aren't talking about fiction, you know, you've addressed climate through fiction, you know, in gun Island, and obviously, through your latest in nonfiction. So what are the takeaways that you want your reader to take, you know, about climate from fiction versus nonfiction, because they are two very, very different forms.

Amitav Ghosh  42:57

They are different, but they're also not so different. I mean, you know, again, Ireland, for example, was a novel, or the nutmegs curse is nonfiction. But I think in many ways, there are huge overlap. You know, I mean, in Grand Island, I'm writing about migrants of a certain kind, who are particular instance of the crisis, or that we see in the world around us. And, again, I've written about the whole migration crisis in, in the, in the nutmeg scars, so they are interconnected in many ways. And I think, you know, in order to, in order to really write productively about the situation that we are in, we have to forget, you know, some of these ironclad distinctions that we used to make in the past, you know, between fiction and nonfiction and so on, there always used to be a lot of overlap, you know, between these, between these genres. So, for example, you know, a very famous example, I should say, is the work of Herman Melville. I mean, Neville always, you know, used huge amounts of nonfiction in his work. And, you know, he was also an ethnographer, writing about places, and so on. So Moby Dick is filled with information about, about whales, you know, and you know, such information has existed at that time. And actually, the whole story is based on on a historical incident. So I think that we are going to have to, you know, lose on the boundaries as we go ahead.

Tara  44:26

Another thing that I was very fascinated with is that I really like that your research involves speaking to people traveling primary resources, and in the nutmeg scores. You spoken about Bangladeshi migrants who move to other places like Italy because of certain climate conditions in the Bengal region. These are climate refugees, if you will. So could you share for us one anecdote from speaking to some of these Bangladeshi migrants? What kind of things were foremost in their minds? What were they running from?

Amitav Ghosh  44:59

Well, What was very interesting is that actually, I met many, many migrants, many Bangladeshi migrants who, who, you know, told me the stories of how they left. And often it's that, you know, they don't, agriculture has become impossible, you know, in their villages, because of your erratic rainfall, because of changes in the seasons and so on. And that's increasingly the case, you know, I mean, across the Angolan across India, so many of them were forced to leave because of those reasons. But if I asked them about, you know, if I put the question to them, are you a climate migrant, and none of them would ever accept that, you know, I was very struck by that, because actually, Bangladesh is a very well educated about climate issues. The Bangladesh government, you know, disseminates a lot of information. And also, there are many NGOs active in Bangladesh, other disseminate a lot of information, and actually we in India would do well, to study what Bangladesh has been doing in terms of both education and resilience measures. So it was, it was interesting, you know, so talking to these guys, it was very interesting, I would say, are, you know, are you a climate migrant? And they would say no, because it wasn't just climate, you know, it was again, as Margaret Atwood said, it's, it's not just climate change, it's everything change. And they were, they were political difficulties, a lot of them had family difficulties, you know, quarrels with the family and so on. What was very striking actually, you know, is that in these, in these Italian migrant camps, there were lots and lots of Bangladeshis, and lots of also of Pakistanis, but very few Indians, you know, because Indians I think tend to the Indians who have been displaced by climate and so on, they tend to migrate within India mainly except for Indian Punjabi, Punjabi is migrating on a large scale now abandoning their lands and so on. But other than that, most, you know, migration out of this out of the suburban, for example, tends to be towards either Delhi or Bombay or Bangalore, you know, on the west coast. But, you know, one story I particularly remember was this young Pakistani boy, and, you know, he was from the Punjab, I was speaking to him in Rome, and what happened to him is that he had a fight with his father, you know, but there it was a farming family, he had a fight with his father, which is a normal thing. I mean, that happens all the time, everywhere. And in another in another time, he would probably have gone off to, to another village are gone off to, to a relative, and, you know, spent a few weeks. And, you know, his father said, about agile and so on, and ultimately, he would have gone back, and, you know, it would have been like that. But what happened in his case, is that, you know, he was sulking. So he went to the railway station, and at the railway station, he met up with a, with a whole group of migrants who were going to make their way to here, and he just fell in with them. And, uh, you know, he made this incredible journey of, you know, half walking half, walking across the border to Iran, between Pakistan and Iran, then crossing Iran then crossing Turkey being shot at by, you know, by Turkish soldiers. And from then finally, he ends up in, in Rome, you know, so this is one of the ways in which the world has really changed, you know, yeah,

Tara  48:35

I mean, I can't imagine how I just can't wrap my head around it. You know, I recently reread the hungry tide. It's one of the first books that I read by you. And it was just amazing the way that you brought the Sundarbans to life. And then you know, you have mentioned and you have depicted Sunderbans in other other books of yours like jungle Nama and Ghana. So I really wanted to know, you know, how things changed in your portrayal and treatment of the Sunderbans from Hungary tied to Grand Island. It's,

Amitav Ghosh  49:15

you know, the Sunderbans is a it's a landscape and ecology that is being absolutely devastated right now, you know, each of these cyclones that have hit the Sunderbans region in the last 10 years since I wrote, since the publication of of the hungry tide has actually made the situation incredibly dire for the people there, you know, much more even than I had imagined. So, you know, Cyclone Aila, for example, was a devastating blow to many, many people in the summer, and every year since then it's just gotten worse and worse. So, you know, Cyclone Umfang in 2020. Again, it was just completely devastating, you know, a lot of the land which had been reclaimed and which was the fertile land rice producing our submerged under water? Those lands will not be calculable again for years, maybe? Who knows? So, you know, many, many people have lost have lost their livelihood.

Michelle .  50:16

Yeah, definitely, I think it's something that is, you know, that just feeds like, like a dystopian world. But unfortunately, it is our reality, and it is something that we can't escape. Um, so we're going to our next section, where we talk about more about your personal journey as a writer. Yes. So, um, can you tell us an anecdote from your college days, like, when you were just starting out as a writer, you know, something that helps you even today? Like, did you have mentors? What was it like,

Amitav Ghosh  50:44

one thing I did in college is that I started working as a reporter for our cash money, you know, they used to be sort of the sort of youth panel, you know, a local deli, youths channel, and I started working as a reporter there, you know, just to earn a little money, you know, you get 100 rupees, perhaps, for making a program. And, you know, that really was a very formative thing for me, you know, because I, it planted the idea of doing journalism in my mind. So after that, I, after college, I joined the Indian Express, and I worked there for for quite a long time,

Tara  51:27

I remember going to see a talk of yours, I think, when I was around 13, with my parents. And yeah, and you had mentioned how you studied anthropology and how that's helped you and how you write every day. And that was sort of my first introduction to writers and their processes. I still remember it very, very well, one last question for you. What do you read for fun?

Amitav Ghosh  51:52

Oh, it changes all the time. You know, also nowadays, it's very rare that I have time to read for fun. I just keep getting more and more people writing to me saying, you know, your book inspired, inspired me to write this novel, short story. So now you have to read it. It's just deluged with manuscripts now, and I can hardly keep up.

Michelle .  52:17

Right? We can only imagine what it must be like. So before we end. So there is just a quick rapid fire round where you just have to give us one word answers. So the first one is, what's your favorite book that you've written and why?

Amitav Ghosh  52:32

It's always the the last book to in this case, it would be the next class.

Tara  52:36

That makes sense. So that brings us to what's next?

Amitav Ghosh  52:40

Well, I'm working on a book about the 19th century China trade, the background of the i disability

Michelle .  52:48

Amitav, the teacher or Amitav, the writer,

Amitav Ghosh  52:52

definitely the writer, I'm not much of a teacher.

Tara  52:55

But on that note, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much for all your answers, your insights, and the books that you've written. They really changed. They have changed the way that I think, and they've added a lot to my life. So thank you.

Michelle .  53:10

Thank you so much.

Amitav Ghosh  53:11

That's wonderful to know. That's wonderful. Thank you very, very much.

Tara  53:18

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did. I never thought that one day, I would actually tell him that I met him when I was 13. And the impact he's made.

Michelle .  53:29

Yeah, no, I think yeah, do you do come true for me? You know, that happened when we spoke to Radhika was a comedian. Because I was just watching her sketches online. You know, when I was in Bahrain, and then we actually spoke to her interviewed her. So yeah, for me, that was a very surreal,

Tara  53:44

talking about dreams come true. This entire season is felt like a dream. You know, we've got so many different kinds of author, so many different kinds of topics. This time we did food writing, I'm a big foodie, as you guys know, so we spoke to Krishna show.

Michelle .  53:58

Yeah, and I feel, you know, I'm still a child. I adore writing for children. And we have done that with Sudha moody. You know, it's really the books that that I did as a kid. So, you know, lots of genres children's writing, and our next episode is really thrilling because we will be, you know, taking these lies of the first women doctors ever and actually dissecting each and one of them in you know, with committer out. She is the author of Lady doctors, and no one has, you know, really written about the real story about these women doctors before there were no resources around it. So this is a first of first and we do hope that this book will have a domino effect on every other story about Windows.

Tara  54:39

Yeah, absolutely. I love it on stories of domino effects and to think that it was just a Google Doodle of this doctor called dogma by that led to hours and hours of spine crumbling research.

Michelle .  54:53

Yeah, and I can't wait to ask her all things medicine. So I'm a big medical drama fan. But anyway, you know, we we do Did you read the book and tune in next week? So thanks for tuning in to Books and Beyond with us.

Tara  55:05

Yes. And Michelle and I as you know, we are editors we are podcasters. We are storytellers. And through bound, we help you create stories and put them out into the world. We mentioned our WhatsApp groups in the beginning of this episode. As mentioned, we have bought WhatsApp groups for writers and podcasters. Where we have conversations we share resources, please do join the WhatsApp group. The links are in the show notes. You can simply click and it will take you to the group

Michelle .  55:34

and we are at bound India on all social media platforms. We'll be back next Wednesday with Kavita