Sundarbans: A Historical Study of Amitav Ghosh’s Select Novel

Abstract

Amitav Ghosh describes the history and geography of a place mould lives and shape identities and destinies. He also explores how people of different nationalities and different social and cultural identities have struggled against political and ideological positions that have pertinently confined them to the fringes of human society. He is predominantly a writer with a postcolonial consciousness in his novels.  In An Antique Land explores the history of Egypt and The Shadow Lines deals with the colonial impact on the cultural, social and political lives of people in India, Pakistan, Egypt, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. The Glass Palace is a vast, expansive canvas of epic dimensions also traces the years of colonial presence in Burma, Malay, and India.  This research paper is highlighting the plight of the subalterns of Sundarbans in West Bengal, where socio-political turmoil extracts as heavy a toll as the ravaging tides. Ghosh is immersed in the Indian-Bengali ethos. He also examines the influence of past on present and reveals the predicament of individuals who are subjected to ,the events of history, individuals who do not appear in the spectrum of history but the ones whose life underwent a complete transformation because of the larger political, social and national upheavals.