Review: A Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

Two of the mighty rivers of the Indian subcontinent, Ganga and Brahmaputra become one in Bangladesh. Before they drain into the Bay of Bengal, they form a massive delta where all the silt is deposited. This three hundred kilometer stretch is a mangrove forest called Sunderban - the beautiful forest. The delta is literally thousands of islands separated by rivulets ranging from a few feet to few miles in width. Many of these islands and much of the forest disappears at high tide only to reappear when the tide ebbs. The river water merges with the salt water from the Bay of Bengal creating breeding grounds with varying salinity for a variety of marine life. It is said that the Sunderbans have a greater variety of marine life than all of European waters.

Many of the islands in the Sunderbans are inhabited. The silt brought by the rivers has made the land very fertile. But life here is not easy. The Sunderbans are a critical barrier for the terrible cyclones of the Bay of Bengal and prevent them from moving inland into India and Bangladesh. However the islands of the tide country bear the brunt of these storms. These storms uproot trees, rip houses apart, carry boats and steamers away from their docks only to dump them miles away. The forests are inhabited by man-eating tigers, crocodiles as big as fishing boats and deadly snakes.

Nature, here, is not exactly subtle. It expresses itself loudly, clearly and frequently harshly.

In this world of raw, visceral natural extremes, Amitav Ghosh paints characters who experience similar extremes of human emotions and reactions. The human emotion is just as fractured and fluid as the islands of the Sunderbans. People experience emotional surges and storms just like the Sunderbans experience tides and cyclones. There are parts to the human brain just as malevolent as the man-eating tigers, and parts just as fertile and loving as the soil of the Sunderban delta.

A fine book on all counts.