"The march of the novel through history: testimony from my grandfathr’s bookshelf" is the essay i liked most from Amitav Ghosh's book 'Imam and the Indian and other prose pieces'.

This essay by amitava ghosh ends with a homage of sorts to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya who, Ghosh says, is widely regarded as one of the intellectual progenitors of Indian nationalism. Nirad babu had called him the ‘creator of Bengali fiction and ….the greatest novelist in the Bengali language (had read two days back in Armesto’s 'Civilisations ' a similar praise for Bankim and a phillipine renaissance man rizal?)

Bankim had identified Sanskrit and English school of Bengali writers and had said that the latter has fewer practitioners but produced better writing. He also said that there was nothing like an indigenous school of writing which owed nothing either to the ancient scholarship and literature or to the western knowledge and ideas

“The English or the German language can possess no words or expressions to denote ideas or conceptions which have not entered the Teutonic brain(or which the Teuton refuses to acknowledge as kosher)… just as the Englishman or German boasts of still vaster number of ideas utterly foreign to the Hindu.”

He then goes on to narrate the tale of a navvy who had strayed into the country and whose request for food had yielded a coconut. The navvy had proceeded to bite and chew the husk Compares the approach of scholars to the hungry foreigner and says that they ‘bite at the husk of Sanskrit learning’ and do not go ‘to the kernel’. This is in agreement with another line that had prefaced the tale of the coconut-“Nothing is more common subject of merriment among the natives of India than the European’s ignorance of all that that relates to India.”

Defiant Indians who are testing the so-called superiority of the foreigner. Coconut is not so rare a plant that a navvy would be completely unaware about its well protected nectar and kernel. And offering coconuts to hungry and foreign strangers is indicative of a slightly cruel sense of humour. One is reminded of the story of the crane and the fox who invited each other for dinner and served soup in a pitcher and plate respectively. Before you ask “How do cranes drink from pitchers?”, let me say that it is a story which is far fetched but which does not fail to convey the feelings of one-upmanship and revenge. Another story I have just remembered is even more fantastic and I got it by its tail i.e. by an unforgettable image. It is about a generous ant who finds a pitcher and decides to convert it into a common home because most other animals want to move in once they see it.

“I cheerfully admit the intellectual superiority of Europe. I deny, however…that intellectual superiority can help the blind to see or the deaf to hear.” The openness to improvement and candour in acknowledging the advancement of Europeans is matched by the assuredness of a wise civilization that could not prevent gradual decay.

Bankim is replying to Protestant missionary W. Hastie, who had written about the ‘hideousness and grossness of the monstrous system’ of ‘myrotheistic idolatory’. He had also expressed wonder that this has been the ‘principal pabulum of the spiritual life of the Hindus for about a thousand years, and the loudly boasted lore of their semi-deified priests.’ Acc. to Hastie “The Hindu is just what his idol gods have made him.” and adds that idolatry, and not foreign conquerors, are the curse of Indian’s history. “No people was ever degraded except by itself.”

in ‘the ghosts of Mrs. Gandhi’, one of the most touching(it touches upon the issues of instigated communal tension and the range of responses that such breakdowns in normal life evoke, ethical issues like the best response and appropriateness of writers 'participating' in the violence by describing it and how much time should have lapsed before they can participate, how neutral can one be?, the paralysing effect of violence on some and the opposite effect on others ) essays in the book, Ghosh writes about the difficulty of writing about violence without creating a panorama of violence. He talks of the Bosnian writer Dzevad karahasan, who says in his remarkable essay ‘Literatrure and War’, “the decision to perceive literally everything as an aesthetic phenomenon(aesthetic of indifference)- completely sidestepping questions of goodness and truth -is an artistic decision which began in the artistic realm and went on to become characteristic of the contemporary world” “let us not fool ourselves. The world is written first- the holy books say, that it was created in words-and all that happens in it, happens in language first.”

Women who could protect men and make the hoodlums scamper. Lalita Ramdas, Veena Das, Mita Bose, Radha Kumar. Nagarik Ekta manch and their pamphlet ‘Who are the Guilty?’

men who could keep their head while all around people were losing theirs-Swami Agnivesh, Ravi Chopra, Chandrashekar.

Safdarjang Enclave, the place where our author was during the 1984 riots, was not safe, and the his friend's neighbours, an old couple, were reckless in their tardiness. the loyalty and presence of mind of their servant and the concern of their non-Sikh neighbours helps them escape death.

The 'not joining' of VSN is to keep intact his status as observer and explainer of people who are not blessed with his kind of dispassionate analysis. Joining would bring contamination. One cannot avoid taking their side and, worst of all, might even start thinking like them. VSN stance is I am what I am and enjoy it so much that I dare not change it. Show me your defects before I move on to the next travelogue.

Both of them have a more than ordinary and sustained exposure to other cultures but have been affected differently. Amitav Ghosh has diffidence and a deference to academic rigour which VSN lacks. A writer cannot survive without some unchecked biases. VSN has some of the biggest biases. it is a question of background and the extent to which you are willing to have your opinions challenged.