Ecocriticism In Amitav Ghosh’s Novel The Hungry Tide

Eco-criticism in The Hungry Tide is analysed from the concept of ‘nature’, interdependencies of life forms, eco-system, ecological niche, myth and the notion of epiphany. The word ‘ecology’ is usually connected with the ‘green movement’. The bio-centric idea of the theory postulates that the non-human world has an independent value in contrary to it’s utalitarian value to the human beings.

In addition to this, nature should not be destroyed except to meet the vital needs of the human race. Bate provides a representation from Wordsworth’s The Excursion that : “Everything is linked to everything else, and most importantly, the human mind must be linked to the natural environment”(66). The momentary epiphany of nature writing with it’s Romantic inheritance is the observation of Dana Phillips. The two distinct modes of Erlebnis and Erfahrung ( adventure, chance, ocurrence, a passing sensation Vs know-how, expertise, skill) is portrayed skilfully by Ghosh in the characterisation of Nirmal, Fokir and Piya.

The Indian part of the Sundarbans is the location of The Hungry Tide. The landscape acts as a central protagonist in the novel as it intermingles the natural history with the human history. Sundarbans is the bhathirdesh or the tide country which is midwived by the moon. Human life is as changeable as the ebb and flood of water. The Sundarbans has the vast, intermittently submerged archipelago, largely covered by mangrove forests that forms the delta of Ganges as it debouches into Bay of Bengal. It is the largest delta in the world that is formed by three great rivers emptying into Bay of Bengal- the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna. The archipelago, the Sundarbans which means the beautiful forest derives its name from a common species of mangrove, the sundari tree, Heriteria minor. The land is half-submerged at high tide and it’s by the falling that the water gives rise to the forest. Recalling Rikie’s Catkins, Ghosh puts forth:

We who have always thought of joy

as rising… feel the emotion

That amazes us

When a happy thing falls. ( The Hungry Tide, 8)

The set of conditions that supports life is clearly evident in the formation of the mangrove forest thus constituting the larger part of the ‘ecosystem’ or the ‘biosystem’. The river’s channels create a terrain where the boundaries between land and water are always mutating and unpredictable. In mohona, there are no borders to separate from salt and river from sea. The tides reach as far as three hundred kilometres inland and everyday many acres of forest would disappear underwater to re-emerge hours later.

The currents are so powerful that they reshape the islands daily, as in some days the water tears away the entire peninsulas and at other times, it forms new shelves and sandbanks. When the tides create new land, mangroves will grow overnight and would spread so fast as to cover a new island within a few years. Ghosh explains: “ A mangrove forest is a universe into itself, utterly unlike other woodlands or jungles”(The Hungry Tide, 7). The Sundarbans has the largest mangrove forest in the world- the habitat of man-eating Bengal tigers, huge salt water crocodiles, species of snakes, crabs, birds. It’s forest has a reputation for eeriness and most of it is reputed never to have a human settlement. Historically, the waters of Sundarbans were home to great number of whales and dolphins. The Orcaella or the fresh water dolphin is one of the earth’s rarest creatures.

The tide country people of Sundarbans call dolphins as susuk. A study has shown that there are more species of fish in Sundarbans than in the whole continent of Asia. The water of the river and the sea inter-penetrate each other creating hundreds of different ecological niches, with streams of fresh water running along the floors of the channel creating variations of salinity and turbidity. “This proliferation of environments was responsible for creating and sustaining a dazzling variety of aquatic life form-from gargantuan crocodiles to microscopic fish”(The Hungry Tide, 125). Thus, the ecological niche of the Sundarbans furnishes itself as a habitat for the royal Bengal tiger and Irrawady dolphins.

The ideology of myth unites ‘nature’ and ‘man’ in The Hungry Tide. The myth surrounding the creation of river Ganges is evident. The legend points out the descent of goddess Ganga from the heavens which would have destroyed the earth if Lord Shiva had not controlled her by tying into his ash-smeared locks. When Lord Shiva’s hair is washed into a vast knotted tangle, the river separates into thousands of tangled strands which speak for the existence of the immense archipelago of islands stretching from Hooghly in West Bengal to the shores of Meghna in Bangladesh.

Also, tracing Tethys sea to the Greek mother of Ganga, Ghosh presents a theory about the emergence of the Indian subcontinent and then the birth of her twin children, the Ganges and the Indus. The river dolphin “shushuk” is the creature that conjoined the Ganges and the Indus and it is the legacy left to the twin river by their mother Tethys. Ghosh underscores the fact that life is conditioned by beliefs about nature and religion with their allied mythological patterns.

Further, the myth of Bon Bibi, the goddess of the forest who rules over the jungles is represented in The Hungry Tide. Bon Bibi came to Sundarbans with her brother Shah Jhongoli. She had encountered the demon- Dokkhin Rai and had defeated him in a pitched battle through which one half of the jungle went to the demon and the other half was retained by the goddess. Dhona, a trader, goes with his men to collect honey and was in Dokkhin Rai’s territory and the innocent boy Dukhey is proved a victim.

When Dukhey was confronted by Dokkhin Rai in the shape of a tiger, the boy cried to Bon Bibi to help him. The legend portrays that Bon Bibi came instantly to save Dukhey. The myth made a point in the lives of the tide country people that: “No man who is good at heart has anything to fear in this place” (The Hungry Tide, 324). The people built shrines for Bon Bibi and started to perform rituals too. They believed that ‘shushuk-’ the dolphins were considered to be her eyes and her ears. The fisherman believed that these messengers of Bon Bibi always did good and if one followed the dolphins, they would find fish to one’s bounty. Myths are flexible, adaptable and resilent. Ghosh makes effective use of them by transposing and transplanting them in his narratives.

The binary opposites of Erlebnis and Erfahrung is clearly evident in The Hungry Tide. Fokir, Piya and Nirmal are the three major characters who are close to nature. Nirmal is the chief informer as he equips one with a sense of place. Nirmal is considered as a person who is filled with the haze of poetry and fuzzy ideas about the tide country with the facts that he has gathered over the years. He believes that badh is not just a guarantor of human life but also the abacus, archive and library of stories. He cautions Fokir : “ My friend, not only could it happen again-it will happen again. A storm will come, the waters will rise and the bandh will succumb, in part or in whole. It is only a matter of time”(The Hungry Tide, 205).

Nirmal initially thinks that he only ends up gibing a name to the trust which is started by Nilima as “Badabon Trust”which is born out of an arabic and a bangla word -bada to bon or forest. Eventually, at the end of the novel, he is able to save the lives of thousands after his death by building a cyclone-prone shelter in the top of Nilima’s hospital. Nirmal is a historic materialist who finds everyhing inter-connected- the sky, the trees, the weather, people, poetry, science and Nature. He believes: “ A place is what you make of it” (The Hungry Tide, 281).

Fokir is considered to be the embodiment of nobility. Fokir saves Piya when she is thrown over-board by a Forest Department officer. The knowledge of Fokir about the waterways of Sundarbans dazzles Piya and leads her into a pool of dolphins. Piya is startled by Fokir’s habits as Piya praises Fokir: “Very few people can adapt themselves to that kind of rhythm one in a million … it was so amazing to come across someone like Fokir … I’ve never met anyone with such an instinct: it’s as if he can see right into the river’s heart”. (267)

Fokir is the truest soul in the novel as he is not greedy and pays heed to Piya’s modesty. For Moyna and others, the disappearance of Fokir in the river would mean hatred for Moyna’s career. But it is due to the fact that he is so close to nature and sees his mother’s face everywhere in the river. Fokir’s respect and love for his mother even in a dream captivates Piya and Kanai. Piya starts to love Fokir without language. He struggles pathetically to save Piya and dies in his attempt. Fokir’s truest life comes to an end.

Piya is a cetologist from Seattle who is known as the East Indian girl, a kind of departmental mascot at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Gurnah puts forth: “ Piya’s simulytaneous foreigness and Indianness make it harder for people to read her, but also make it easier for them to exploit her, indeterminacy in the social scheme of things”(21). The intensity of Piya’s quest about dolphins habitat is such that she finds herself at the brink of a major breakthrough - a hypotheses of stunning elegance and economy. Piya knows that the research would be an ardorous process but even if she completes it : “ it would be enough; as an alibi for life, it would do; she would not need to apologise for how she had spent her life on this earth. (The Hungry Tide, 127)

Piya feels drawn towards Fokir and senses female hostility from Moyna. Piya recognises Fokir as the one who embodies the dominant spirit of Lusibari and forgotten places, as these places are : “ full of these ghosts, these unseen presences whose murmurings could never quite be silenced no matter how loud you spoke” (The Hungry Tide, 220). Piya’s futile attempt to save tiger and Fokir’s attempt to kill the tiger in order to protect men and women disillusions Piya as she finds Fokir different from what she has thought. She is even ready to sacrifice her life for Orcaella. During the storm, Piya realises her love for Kanai. Ironically, when Piya loses her equipment except the GPS monitor, she prays: “ Whatever happens, let it happen on land. Not the water, please not the water”(The Hungry Tide, 372).

However, Nature brings Piya and Fokir together. Feelings run very deep in such conditions, Their bodies were so close, so finely merged … it was as if the storm had fiven them what life could not: it had fused them together and made them one”(The Hungry Tide, 390). Piya struggles hopefully to reconstruct her life by collecting enough money for Moyna and Tutul and starts a project in the name of Kanai. Piya realises : “ For me, home is where the Orcaella are: So there’s no reason why this couldn’t be it” (The Hungry Tide, 400).