Man, though wonders at the beauty of nature and its creations, fail to realize that they are also part of the web of life in the earth. Moreover, they adopt an anthropocentric attitude towards nature which, in fact, results in exploitation of it. This kind of attitude towards nature has urged several critics and writers to warn them of nature’s two-sided faces – its power and its rebellious nature. They create many nature-centred texts and bring in the importance of establishing a harmonious relationship with nature through their concepts and critical essays. This becomes evident when Serpil Oppermann in his article “Ecocriticism: Natural world in the Literary Viewfinder” says, “Ecocriticism does enable the critics to examine the textualisation of the physical environment in literary discourse itself and to develop an earth-centred approach to literary studies” (1). In this way, Amitav Ghosh has examined the physical environment in his novel The Hungry Tide. As an anthropologist, he finds it easy to locate the problems undergone by the people living in an immense archipelago of islands, the Sundarbans.
The Hungry Tide, a complex novel revolves around the very little known but a beautiful part in the world, the Sundarbans stretching from India which is named after the Sundari tree, as the mangrove is locally called. The land often disappears and reappears due to heavy tides and the land has many survivors who battle against nature and its calamities. “There are no borders here to divide fresh water from salt, the river from the sea. The tides reach as far as three hundred kilometres inland and every day thousands of acres of forest disappear underwater only to re-emerge hours later.”(HT 7). They attempt to live amongst the man-eaters, crocodiles and mangroves that often submerge in the tide.
Piyali Roy, Kanai, Fokir, Nirmal, Nilima and
Moyna have their own associations with nature as either an insider or an
outsider respectively. The central character of the novel Piyali Roy, an Indian
but a stubborn American cetologist comes to Sundarbans to study the rarely seen
Irrawaddy dolphins. It is believed by the people that her arrival on the land
disturbs the atmosphere of the tide stricken land. Being a Bengali she does not
know her own mother tongue, yet attempts to visit the place for the sake of her
research as she basically adores nature for what it is. “She stopped the man with
a raised hand and said, in apology, that she knew no Bengali: ami Bangla jani na.” (HT 4). She does not stop for not knowing
the language and seeks the help of a translator, Kanai Dutt for her research.
Kanai Dutt, a linguist who runs a
translation bureau accepts to be an informal translator for Piya in her
research, especially between Piya and Fokir. He comes to Lusibari on the
invitation of his aunt Nilima to unveil the dairy that has been written by his
late uncle Nirmal regarding the Morichjapi massacre. They accidentally meet in
a local train to Lusibari and Kanai comes forward to help Piya in her research
where she hires a local fisherman for the same.
Fokir the local fisherman, who Piya hires for her research, is the son of Kusum, a woman who had died in the Morichjapi massacre. He lives the way his mother has taught him; to worship the nature goddess “Bon Bibi (HT 103)” and often sings in praise of her. He is looked after by his relative Horen soon after his mother’s death and finds his own way as an illiterate fisherman who blends with the local way of living along with waters and the wild aspects of nature.
Hence he becomes an insider while he is favourable to Piya and Kanai who are outsiders, in reading the climatic changes of that tide filled the land. Though Kanai is not new to that place, he does not seem to realize the changing attitude of that land and so naturally behaves as an outsider, being unaware of its wildlife aspects. He believes that his knowledge of languages and the outer world are worth noticing and ignores to go deep into the place where he was once brought up.
Piya relies completely on Fokir, whom she admires and finds him as more comfortable beyond their language obstacles. She often queries him about the Irrawaddy dolphin that she has come in search of, and proposes to go deep into the water to get the readings of the areas where these dolphins are located. This proposal is readily accepted by Moyna, Fokir’s wife, through the help of the translator Kanai and they start their voyage.
Though she is a cetologist, Piya fails to understand the land in which she continues her research. Her understanding of nature is minimal and she fails to acquire knowledge about the Sundarbans, which is a tide-surrounded land. She has been researching various types of dolphins and has been working with nature related sources, yet her understanding and knowledge about nature seem to be more professional than natural. This mist covers her throughout the novel which always makes her seek support at the time of her unfortunate happenings.
Unlike Piya and Kanai, Fokir almost has a blend with the current of water and seems more comfortable to be in the water rather than inland. This attitude gains him more knowledge about that particular land and sounds more understandable at times of heavy tides and at times of difficulties in explaining her ideas regarding routes to find more dolphins. It is Fokir who saves Piya from drowning in the beginning of the novel, “At last, when her hands were on the gunwale, he corkscrewed his body under her, pushing her out of the water and into the boat… he weighed her down with his body and fastened his mouth on hers,” (HT 56). In the same way, it is again Fokir who helps Piya at the time of heavy storm by sacrificing his own life. “‘He didn’t make it…’… he’d been hit by something very big and very heavy, an uprooted stump; … He’d said Moyna’s name and Tutul’s before the breath faded on his lips.”(HT 392).
The land as such is full of water and is quite constant in changing itself even in a short period. This creates a misconception among the survivors of the land that it often destroys the lives of the people. Moreover, the land has wild animals such as man-eaters and crocodiles to which the people have to risk their lives. It has been assumed that nearly twenty per cent of people lose their lives per year. Hence survival is always a question for them. Furthermore, the government has deprived them of their living in the land named Morichjapi in which Fokir’s mother Kusum dies.
Nirmal, uncle of Kanai has been a retired headmaster who has always been a revolutionary aspired by Marx. He comes to know that a few refugees have newly settled in the Morichjapi land through Kusum who has also accompanied them. He plans to teach these refugee children some knowledge and wished to help them in all possible ways. He forgets that the mangrove is a crucial place to lead a life and favours them at their miseries. When the government warns them of danger, they try to retaliate and hence many lose their lives. Nirmal himself disappears in this massacre and a few along with Fokir and Horen survive. This is where Nirmal completes his diary which Nilima, his widowed wife want Kanai to read.
Nirmal has married Nilima and has reached Lusibari in 1950 due to his revolutionary activities and hence plans to settle in Lusibari itself. His wife Nilima founded a union which they named as “Badabon Development Trust” (HT 81). She involves herself completely in social service and unlike her husband is quite practical and does not react against the government fearing to lose its support for her trust. She often advises Nirmal to distance himself from involving in the refugees battle for their settlement in their newfound land, but in vain.
In the same way, “Sir Daniel Hamilton” (HT 78), the British Lord who owned many estates once visited the land of Sundarbans. He found that place to be an imaginary land where people can live without caste and religion. He brought many cultured people from different places, provided those lands and made them settle there in a course of time. He was of the opinion that people might be united and there might be a land with no cultural bounds. However, the idea was a complete fantasy. He failed to realise that his so called imaginary land was basically a mangrove and a forest. His thoughts had failed him to analyse the troubles and risks that people had to face for their survival.
The fact of living in a dense forest has been denied by Nirmal who revolutionises all the aspects of the refugees. Both of them do not delve much into the land which has a tendency to change its form as it likes. They take nature to be a part of human life and deny the fact that man is a part of nature. They both alike dream of a problem-free and a culture free society that would pave way for the future generation with positive notions where both the genders would be treated equally and lead a peaceful life. “He dreamed of a place where men and women could be farmers in the evening, poets in the afternoon and carpenters in the evening.’” (HT 53).
Apart from these ideas, Kusum, the victim of Morichjapi massacre, feels depressed that the importance given to the wildlife by the government is not equally given to the human beings who are willing to live in that land. Though the mangrove has been excluded for the sake of wildlife, people who find it difficult to live in drylands and hence seeking this mangrove are not allowed or permitted by the government to settle. This aspect brings in a question whether the animals are more important than human beings by many readers.
It creates a great impact on the
readers and at the same time, human beings who try to settle on the land that
is provided for wildlife also becomes a problematic argument put forth through
this paper. It is a pity that people are being humiliated by other people for
the sake of animals. Yet occupying the space allocated for nature’s sake brings
in all these humiliations into the world of humanity.
At one point in the novel, Piya could
not resist the act of killing a tiger that enters their boundary which is
actually its own trespassed boundary. She condemns the killing of the tiger
saying, “Everywhere in the world dozens of people are killed everyday – on
roads, in cars, in traffic. Why is this any worse?”(HT 301) for which Kanai retaliates: “…it was people like you… who
made a push to protect the wildlife here, without regard for the human costs.
And I’m complicit because people like me – Indians of my class, curry favour
with their Western patrons.” (HT
301).
Kanai appears to be partly right yet, it was the same people who urged others to settle in the same land. Rather than questioning all such aspects, coming out with a solution may lead to the betterment of the situations and commotions among the readers. Hence the fear of risking their lives after their settlement may lead to further fear and panic. Dhivya Anand of La Trobe University, Australia points out in her article “Words on Water: Nature and Agency in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide” published in Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, about the cause of man-eaters, i.e., the tigers hunting human beings.
A German biologist Hubert Hendrich has done an unfinished research which proves that the attack sites are being surrounded by salty water, affecting the organs of the tigers that drink them, resulting in irritation. But even before finishing his research, his study had been interrupted by Bangladesh’s war of Independence. Furthermore, the never-ending tides that wash away the odour of its prey resemble the odour of the corpses floating in the water. This odour might have made it a habit for these tigers to have become man-eaters. This may also be the cause of loss of habitat that has to be taken under consideration by human beings for the welfare of these animals. Leading a harmonious life in such a land like that of the tribals without harming nature and its creations and without going beyond their utility may help these wild animals to be safe.
Moreover, killing them alone will lead to nothingness, since they live in a tide stricken forest that covers the lands with heavy storms and waters all over the areas where people are located. Naturally coping up with the climatic conditions and the wildlife surroundings by preventing them from entering their boundaries with the help of technological equipment that is harmless may bear fruits in surviving peacefully in such a mangrove forest. Thus nature shows its calm and demonic faces to human beings by retaliating against the colonial nature of the natives and the settlers as well. Buell’s books, The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination, emphasises that literature brought nature into the study through ecocriticism and nature studies that paved way for a better understanding of the physical environment. This has been portrayed in Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide, where the archipelago of islands, the Sundarbans, has been emphasised for its beauty and exploitation by man and his built surroundings.
Works Consulted
Ghosh, Amitav. The Hungry Tide.
Oppermann, Serpil. “Ecocriticism: Natural World in the Literary Viewfinder.”
Choudhury, Supriya. A Review on The Hungry Tide.
Soumya B., and Shailendra Kumar Chourasia. “Borders and Boundaries in The Hungry Tide
Johnson, Loretta. “Greening the Library: The Fundamentals and Future of Ecocriticism”.
