It comes as a surprise when one of the most revered Indian authors in English, Amitav Ghosh, says, "I'm a very slow writer. It takes a lot of work to write one page."
River of Smoke (553 pages), his second book in the Ibis trilogy, comes three and a half years after the 2008 Booker-shortlisted Sea of Poppies. The trilogy is Ghosh's most ambitious work, where history and individuals swirl about in one remarkable tale.
The time is set in the early 19th century, before the Opium Wars between the British empire and China. Ghosh — a former journalist with the Indian Express in New Delhi — reminds us how China played an important role in Indian history.
Sea of Poppies took the author to China in 2007-08 and he spent a lot of time in Guangzhou. While it was mainly set in the Calcutta [now Kolkata] of 1838, River of Smoke abandons this centre, for most part. It stretches action from Mauritius in the West to Canton (now called Guangzhou) in the East, with passing references to other parts of the world.
Exploring life in the foreign commercial settlement and the politics of the opium trade, River of Smoke takes off from where Sea of Poppies ends. It moves back and forth in time and heads off in a completely different direction.
Ghosh explains: "My main concern of doing it as a trilogy was to stay with the characters and their families. And if necessary, take up the story two to three decades or two generations later. And I can still do that. The idea was to have a tangible relationship that would allow me to explore new characters and forms."
The writer conceded that he liked being in a dream world and that was why he was in no hurry to write the next book. "I haven't thought where I will take the story in the trilogy's final part," he said.
There is Bhojpuri, Bengali, Chinese, Portuguese and Arabic in his book. And one can make out that the author has observed and listened to the ways in which people converse and behave.
He says: "I would have enjoyed reading Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke even if I had not written them. The books have the texture coming from the use of a variety of languages, dialects and slangs.
"I learnt Bhojpuri grammar and enjoyed doing so. It had me watching Bhojpuri films. I understand the language very well, as my family was settled in Chhapra in Bihar and my father and grandfather spoke Bhojpuri."
Ghosh has also learnt Arabic, which he says had a huge impact on him. "In fact, I am one of the few non-Arab writers who have read a lot of Arab literature and it reflects in my writings. Also, my first book, The Circle of Reason, published in 1986, was about Indians working in the Gulf."
Ever since, he has written many novels, including The Hungry Tide, The Glass Palace, Countdown, The Calcutta Chromosome and The Shadow Lines.
At 54, Ghosh retains a childlike's enthusiasm. "Sea of Poppies has been translated into 25 languages. The book has done quite well in Hindi," he gushes. And why not? For, he has always wanted to be a writer.
"I dreamt of becoming a writer since I was 7," Ghosh says. Immediately after finishing college — the author studied in Dehradun, Delhi, Alexandria and Oxford — at 20, he wanted to start writing. After earning a doctorate at Oxford, he said, "I wrote my first book in the mid-1970s sitting in a tiny top-floor room in Defence Colony in New Delhi."
Back then, India did not have a publishing industry and he faced a difficult time, going from one publisher to another carrying his manuscripts. "Finally, The Circle of Reason was published," he says.
Writing for more than three decades, he felt it was great to be an Indian writer on the international arena in the present times. "The world is our audience. And the experiences I have had make it easier for me to put them into books now. By way of my books, if I can, I would like to address specific issues to which I can make a difference. But otherwise, my basic motto is to write the kind of books I enjoy reading.
"I like writing non-fiction and a novel interests me. As a form, it allows you incredible freedom, and I think of it as the most complete form of utterance known to man.
"Since I am fascinated by history, my books are rooted in history and I can pronounce things in great detail, even though it may sometimes mean saying them in rather dull factual specifics. The novel, on the other hand, can make links that history cannot. And I love the novel's total inclusiveness," he says.
For each of his novels, Ghosh has spent several years researching, which for him was an easy and fun part. Travelling and going to libraries, especially maritime libraries, interests him.
He researched for four and-a-half years for The Hungry Tide and even took a crash course in sailing to get the hang of the sea.
Quite in contrast to the swirling stories he writes, Ghosh is considered to be a private person. He is married to Deborah Baker, also an author, whose biography of an American woman who moved to Pakistan in the 1980s, The Convert, has just been published. They have two children.
"Yes, I lead a very quiet life and my privacy is very important to me," Ghosh says. "Were I to always be in the public eye, I would hate it.
"Moreover, I need the seclusion to write more and do not like driving attention to myself. I believe it is the individuality of the writer that creates his work. For me, it is important that my books should matter more than me. I am not one who likes the limelight, but if my books are liked, it delights me."
Nilima Pathak is a journalist based in New Delhi.
