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Just two years after writing about Burma in his much acclaimed travelogue, 'Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma' (1998, Ravi Dayal) Amitav Ghosh returns to Burma for his latest novel, 'The Glass Palace'. He has a special relationship with the country which has become one of the most closed up countries in recent times. Ghosh writes, "… my greatest debt is to my father, Lieutenant-Colonel Shailendra Chandra Ghosh. He fought in the Second World War as an officer of the 12th Frontier Force Regiment, a unit of the then British-Indian Army. He was in General Slim's Fourteenth Army during the Burma campaign of 1945 and was twice mentioned in dispatches: he was thus among those 'loyal' Indians who found themselves across the lines from the 'traitors' of the Indian National Army. … my book was rooted in his experience, his reflections on the war and his self - questioning…" At every turn of the page the reader feels that this book is really a homage to the father. Ghosh has travelled thousands of miles, read hundreds of books, and collected mountains of material to write this book. The book is an epic of modern world history, not only for the midnight's children. It examines those moments of history during which most of the South Asian continent was colonised, looks at the aftermath of colonisation, and traces those moments when the subjugated started to ask questions, and groped for answers. History comes alive because the players are not puppets, but real people. All of a sudden all those Indian soldiers who fought under the British become real persons. The pride some of them felt for their chosen occupation, the doubts many of them entertained asking themselves the rightness of their choice makes these men more real. The book is also a lesson in colonial trade. Many of the most interesting sections of the book are about teak wood trade in Burma. The Glass Palace starts with the story of a young boy. I was captivated by the eleven year old, Rajkumar, an orphan, who after working on a boat plying the waters of the Bay of Bengal finds himself walking into Mandalay looking for means to survive, who ends up becoming the errand boy at a road side food-stall owned by Ma Cho. After all, my introduction to Ghosh's writing was through his novel, 'The Shadow Lines', where another young boy acts like the thread that runs through the story of senseless racial tensions, woven most magnificently by the writer. Ma Cho's food stall is opposite the west wall of the fort of Mandalay. Ma Cho tells Rajkumar about the fort: 'It's a city in itself, with long roads and canals and gardens. … And right at the centre there is a vast hall that is like a great shaft of light, with shining crystal walls and mirrored ceilings. People call it the Glass Palace.' The fort houses King Thebaw, his Queen Supayalat, their daughters, and hundreds of their courtiers and servants - one of them, ten year old Dolly. The year is 1885. The English have discovered the value of teak wood, and are ready to take over the remaining parts of Burma for the sake of this wood. The Burmese have no chance against the British. With the fall of Mandaly, everybody and anybody, Burmese and otherwise enter the fort and loot it. The royal family is powerless. The King and Queen are captured, and sent with a small retinue to India. Amidst all this chaos, Rajkumar sees Dollyfor the first time, and even as the girl boards the boat that is to transport her along with the royal family away from Burma, her and Rajkumar's fates are sealed. Rajkumar gets a job under Saya John, ne of Ma Cho's customers, and a supplier to teak camps. A fascinating description of how men and elephants cooperate in felling and transporting thousands of massive logs of teak wood from upcountry forests to Rangoon follows. Rajkumar himself becomes a tycoon trading timber. Meanwhile the fate of the Burmese royal family in India gets entwined with that of the local people even though queen Supayalat tries to maintain her distance. Dolly is the mainstay of the royal family in exile. A newly married Indian Collector comes to the district. His young bride, Uma, and Dolly become friends. The inexperienced Uma plays a major role for a great part of the novel. She is the symbol of colonised India. Innocent, timid, hesitant at the beginning, overwhelmed by the apparent superiority of the subjugator, finding a voice in due course, a voice that is loud, vibrant, and clear of doubts. It is to Uma that Rajkumar, the successful business man from Burma comes, apparently looking for Dolly. It is at this point that the novel looses its depth and gains in width, expanding into many directions, from Burma to Malaya through India, from trading in timber to trading in rubber, from the heights of colonialism to the depths of the Second World War, from Rajkumar's story to stories of Uma, her nephews and nieces, from from the stories of Rakjumar and Dolly's sons to those of Saya John's son and grand children. There are no well marked points where one story stops and the other starts. They are all intermingled, various people appearing as suddenly as they disappear. Even Aung San Su Kyi appears. The year is 1996. The novel spans over a period of 100 years. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the novel comes across as being a bit too ambitious. The prize that is paid is the hazy characterisation. Rajkumar suddenly looses his charisma. I was kind of bewildered by this development. I felt betrayed at the hint that I have to discard Rajkumar. This pattern repeats. After taking us through a heart warming love story between Dinu, Rajkumar's son and Alison, Saya John's grand daughter, Ghosh abandons Dinu. Dinu disappears after sending Alison and her senile grand father on their way out of Burma. He appears again, most unexpectedly, at the very end, without any word about how he bore Alison's loss, how we digested the most cruel way she died at the hands of the Japanese invaders. Arjun, the flamboyant officer of the 1/1 Jat Light Infantry unit, who becomes as dear as one's own brother, who becomes the conscience of loyal Indian soldiers serving in the British army, disappears from the book, once he decides to change sides. What did he experience after walking over to the other side? Did his earlier concept of loyalty and fairness bother him? Ghosh provides no answer. If story telling on an epic scale has been the main motive behind this novel, if bringing the past and recent history in South Asia closer to readers is one of his main intentions, Amitav Ghosh has succeeded superbly. I only wish he had made the novel even a grander epic by telling us more about these people whose lives haunt us once we get to know them and start to love them. It is not that Ghosh has not written a great novel, once again. But .... Read another review by Meenakshi Mukherjee Chandra's Bookpage _________________ Read about Amitav Ghosh: http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Ghosh.html Visit Amitav Ghosh's website: http://www.amitavghosh.com Reviews of other novels by Amitav Ghosh: For info on Anglo-Burmese Wars and history of Myanmar
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