Thinking activity :- Gun Island

Hello Readers , 

  

      I am Aditi Vala and student of Department of English, MKBU.This blog is a part of my classroom thinking activity and this activity given by Dr.Dilip Barad Sir.This blog is about Amitav Ghosh's Gun Island.

Let's start….

Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh (born 11 July 1956) is an Indian writer, best known for his English language historical fiction. He won the 54th Jnanpith award in 2018, India’s highest literary honor. Ghosh's ambitious novels use complex narrative strategies to probe the nature of national and personal identity, particularly of the people of India and Southeast Asia. He has also written non-fiction works discussing topics such as colonialism and climate change.

 

Gun Island

The specter of climate change swirls around the characters of Amitav Ghosh’s latest novel, Gun Island. Deen, a New York-based antiquarian book dealer goes into the Sundarbans, the (disappearing) wetlands wedged between India and Bangladesh, in search of a shrine—and the truth behind the myth of the Gun Merchant and Manasi Devi, the goddess of snakes.

 This journey sets off a chain of others and brings in Piya, an American scientist monitoring dolphins in the Sundarbans; Tipu, a slippery, ever-hustling young man who schools Deen; the earnest Rafi who goes from the Sundarbans to Venice via a convoluted, dangerous route taken by migrants today, and Cinta, the glamorous Italian academic, whose faith and insight glimmer through the book. Ghosh weaves the myth of the Gun Merchant into contemporary weather-related realities such as the Los Angeles wildfires, the unusual travels of dolphins and spiders, and the sinking buildings of Venice, to create a pacy, absurdist, and ultimately hopeful tale of our times.

1. How does Amitav Ghosh use the myth of Gun Merchant 'Bonduki Sadagar' and Manasa Devi to initiate discussion on the issue of Climate Change and Migration/Refugee crisis / Human Trafficking?

 With the use of myth Ghosh wants to talk about the serious problem that we are facing today; climate change and migration. Ghosh uses the myth of Manasa Devi and wants to tell us that Gun Merchant changes the places because of climate change and during that journey he realises the problem of migration. The whole story is about the pilgrimage of Gun merchant as well as of Dinanath. Both characters and the events are connected with each other. It is a kind of similar story.

 

Climate change

In Gun Island we see many incidents that are talking about climate change. The floods in Sundarban and tides in Venice are the examples. We see that Nilima talked about the cyclone that came in Sundarban. Animals and various species are changing their places because of pollution and human disturbance. Fertiliser and other chemicals create a dead zone in water and because of that dolphins have to change their place and path often. The wildfire in Los Angeles; that we can connect today also. For example the wildfire in California, the effect of climate change :

 

When Deen and all the other characters are going to see the blue boat, they face many  problems like, tornado, heavy wind, hailstorm and rain. This is the upheaval in the cycle of the season. We can connect it with today also. For example the heavy rain in Delhi in winter !Some other cutting of newspaper,

This is the effect of climate change.

 

Migration :-Amitav Ghosh talking about the problem and the reality of humans. People are selfish who think about themselves, not about others. There are many reasons behind migration. It may be because of political issues, religious problems or it can be climate also. If we see the reasons of migration in the novel, we find four main reasons:

 

Calamities :- Lubna Khala and her family members migrated because of the flood. Everything was destroyed in her village. So they have to migrate to other place. Many other people are also migrating because of drought, cyclone, flood etc.

 

Communal violence :- Bilal was a kind of person who helped his friend's family. He and Kabir are friends. Kabir's land was grabbed by his uncle.

Poverty :- Tipu and Rafi migrate because of poverty. Rafi hasn't enough money to pay the loan.

 Socio-Economic Condition :- There is a character of Palash whose financial condition was good, he is not facing any violence nor calamities. But he has a kind of fantasy or dream to go Finland and for that he is migrating. But then he was not able to make his dream true.

There is the news in the newspaper about Indian migrants

 

2. How does Amitav Ghosh make use of 'etymology' of common words to sustain mystery and suspense in the narrative?

 

Many of the events in the novel that seem magical are dismissed and explained away by its more ‘rational-minded characters almost immediately. A seemingly miraculous ecological event that happens in a climactic scene towards the end of the book theoretically has a logical explanation, as Piya hurriedly explains to Deen, who is finally worn down into being wonderstruck with what is happening to and around him. The hauntings in this book, too, could simply have emotional or talismanic value to the characters they are happening to.

 

In the end, Ghosh seems not to reject the rationale for the mysterious, but simply puts them both on a spectrum of emotional experience. And it is via this emotional self-awareness, this open-mindedness that his protagonist begins to approach the world, and it's very real and present problems. This is the mental journey that a privileged NRI bhadralok man like Deen, with his particular background and history, is not equipped to make. In the end, the lesson he seems to learn is deceptively simple – in this vast and unknowable world that is being torn apart by human systems, this vulnerability matters, and fuels what we ultimately do with what we have to face in front of us.

 

The story has its problems, including its flaws in pacing, or its preoccupation with the inner life of its principal character to the neglect of many of its other compelling people, particularly the women (especially Cinta, who feels woefully underused and whose perspective could liven up a novel like this immensely). Even so, this is in some ways Ghosh’s most tender, even most personal novel yet – while simultaneously being global in scope. It is a story full of that particular grace.

 

3.) There are many Italian words in the novel.Have  you tried to translate these words into English or Hindi with the help of Google Translate Aap.If so how is machine transltion help in proper translation of Italian words into English or Hindi?

 

 

4.) What are your views on the myth or history in the novel Gun Island to draw attention of the readers towards contemporary issues like Climate Change and Migration ?

 Yes, this story is clearly meant to attract the reader's attention to issues such as climate change and migration. Because we are currently confronted with numerous issues related to climate change and migration. It is the writer's responsibility to use art to educate the world's inhabitants.

 5. Is there any connection between 'The Great Derangement' and 'Gun Island'?

 Yes, here is the connection between ‘The Great Derangement' and ‘ The Gun Island’.  Gun Island is the response to the queries raised in ‘The Great Derangement'  “Both these books deal with the significant issues of the current moment that are the unexpected changes in weather conditions in the environment and human migration. The extreme temperature and flood had made people abandon their homeland and migrate to other places. Amitav Ghosh presents in both these books the incompetence of the present generation to grasp the scale of climate change in the spheres of Literature, History and Politics. He is really conscious of the environmental destruction that the world faces today, and the condition of impossibility to retain the ecological balance of the environment. So in ‘The Gun Island’  Amitav Gosh answered the questions from ‘ The Great Derangement.’

 

Thank you.