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This isn?t a post on cinema though I have made some tenuous connections. This is a post on history, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, global trade and some personal observations.

September, 1833. As the Tuscany, that had set sail from Boston about four months ago, approached the Hooghly and made its way up into Calcutta, there was palpable excitement among the officers of the British Empire. The Tuscany carried a cargo so improbable that many thought it was a prank. It carried frozen water! Yes, Ice!

The improbability of ice ?harvested? from the many fresh water ponds of New England traveling over 15,000 miles to reach the greatest city, then, east of London makes for one of the more interesting anecdotes of global trade. Especially, when you consider mankind had not yet discovered industrial refrigeration. The Ice trade, one of the earliest instances of globalization, was pioneered by Frederic Tudor, a tenacious Boston merchant, who was convinced about the commercial prospects of frozen water. It?s a fascinating story ? the engineering marvel behind cutting huge blocks of ice from ponds during New England winter, the innovations in insulation for storing ice, the ship building know-how, the foresight to build ice houses in destination ports for storing ice and the ruthless planning and intrigues to secure monopolies for trading ice ? recounted lyrically in Gavin Weightman?s The Frozen Water Trade.

The impact of ice trade was significant. How long would the Raj have lasted if it wasn?t for the timely respite that ice provided is an interesting proposition. The ice trade into Cuba and Caribbean islands also resulted in the trading back of tropical fruits (in the empty ship containers) which became the mainstay of many Latin American economies (from where we get the term banana republic, an economy hugely dependent on export of fruits and therefore controlled by vested commercial interests). Ice fascinated them as evidenced in those famous opening lines of Gabriel Garcia Marquez?s One Hundred Years of Solitude ? ?Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendí¡ was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice?.

It?s a story long forgotten and the only remnant in India of that fascinating trade is the icehouse in Chennai. Over the years it has served as the residence of Swami Vivekananda, a school, B. Ed trainees’ hostel and now (called Vivekananda Illam) as an exhibition site for Swami Viveananda?s works.

As an aside, the links between the United States and India, actually predates the Ice Trade and Tuscany. First, the ships (Dartmouth and others) involved in Boston Tea Party, which sparked the American War of Independence, belonged to the East India Company and carried crates of tea from India. Second, the national anthem of the USA, the Star Spangled Banner was written on board of HMS Minden during the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake Bay and HMS Minden was the first Royal ship to be built outside Britain at the Wadia shipyard in Bombay. That?s right, Star Spangled Banner was written on a Wadia ship.

The history of trade is replete with such fascinating tales. None more interesting than the opium trade which the British East India Company ran between India and China. So, it was with delight, I received the news last year, that Amitav Ghosh was planning a trilogy set in the backdrop of opium trade of the mid 19th century. There was a personal story to all of this as well. Since my childhood, I have wondered about the presence of poppy seeds in my food especially, my favorite, aloo poshto. Later, I discovered the ?poppy-seed? payasa at my in-laws home in Karnataka. How did poppy seeds (decidedly subversive in many of its forms) reach our food intrigued me no end till I discovered, a few years ago, about the extent of Opium production and trade in the early 19th century India.

With his unique blend of erudition, scholarly study of the context within which he writes and his qualifications in anthropology, Ghosh brings a rare combination of dramatic narration and an appreciation of the stories of the time in his works. Ghosh has been a constant companion over the last decade and half after I discovered In An Antique Land (my personal favorite among his works) and I have seen him evolving into a more assured story teller while shedding the uber serious anthropologist garb that he was wont to lapse into in the past. And since this is an essentially cinema blog, let me hasten to add that I have often wondered why has he not been adapted yet on screen especially the wonderful sci-fi and ?Arthur Clarke? winner The Calcutta Chromosome.

The Sea of Poppies, which is the first of what is now being termed the Ibis trilogy, sees Ghosh in his elements as his trained anthropological eye sets itself on the cross-section of the society involved in the trade. Ghosh establishes parallel narratives whose futures are going to be inextricably linked with the human cargo carrier Ibis. There?s the recently widowed Deeti in her village of Ghazipur which houses the largest opium factory (or Car-cunna as the English called it) who has the vision of the Ibis one morning as she bathes in the Ganges. There?s an American of mixed parentage from Baltimore who finds himself raised up in the shipping hierarchy through a mix fortune and bravado, a once-wealthy zamindaar (Raja Neel) who has fallen on bad times, the agent or the gomasta of a wealthy English merchant who is awaiting the divine appearance of Lord Krishna, an orphaned young French woman who speaks better Bangla than her native tongue among others who set sail on Ibis to Mareech Dweep (Spice Islands) or Mauritius. The canvas is huge and Ghosh revels in minutely setting up each of the principal characters. On the ship, these men and women, from distinctly different social strata shed their prejudices, as they face the unknown future together. They become jahaaz bhais and jahaaz behens to one another.

Ghosh mixes the economic story of the opium trade and the social context of the times deftly into his narrative with such colorful and inventive language that at times, one is forced to re-read entire passages to understand it. It?s amazing to discover how much of Hindustani/Urdu had entered in to the English language spoken by the British in India. Almost, every character speaks English peppered with local words and Ghosh actually writes these words in exactly the anglicized way they would have been spoken with none of the apologetic italics. So you get gems like these:

?Mama! She forgot to bundo her jumma! And oh dekko mama, do: there?s her ankle! Do you see it? Look what the puggly?s done!?

Or

?Damned badzat pootlies. You think I don?t samjo your bloody bucking? There?s not a word of your black babble I don?t understand. Call me a cunnylapper, would you? ?D rather bang the bishop than charter your chute.? ? Here?s my lattee to give you a licking.?

And the most interesting of them all, the language of Serang Ali, the leader of the lascars, a freelancing group of ship hands drawn from all over and whose only address is the Indian Ocean.

?That bugger blongi too muchi foolo ?Wanchi sabbi allo foolo thing?.He ask: Malum Zikri likee milk? Likee ghee? Ever hab stole butter.?

Ghosh has promised to follow these lives to wherever it takes them and one can only wait in anticipation for the trilogy (or more?) to complete. Ghosh also touches upon an interesting area which has remained under-served, the economic history of India. Most of the history we grew up learning focused on the political history of the land with some attention placed on the social history. The more I study the economic history of India during the Raj, the more I am convinced that missing out on the economic aspect which formed the basis of the Raj in India is a huge omission. The British had plundered significant wealth by the third decade of the 19th century in India from the treasury of the royal families. The running of Raj needed a rich source of cash from India but it wasn?t easy to find.

One of the largest markets, then (as now), China, didn?t want any of the products from the Industrial Revolution but Britain could hardly do without the tea and silk from China. Opium provided a way out for the British. The Chinese were among the first to use Opium for recreation and over time, the addiction had taken strong roots in China. The Qing dynasty banned Opium in 1729 but the British trading companies continued with it by bribing the officials at the Guangzhou port. Over time, it became a hugely profitable trade as the Chinese demand for opium especially the high quality variety coming from India couldn?t be satisfied.

If it wasn?t for opium, they might even have contemplated leaving India such was the drain of managing the Company in India. The coercion of the farmers in the Gangetic belt to grow opium served to prolong their rule in India and in other colonies. By mid 19th century, the opium trade made more profits for the Empire than the total revenues of the United States! It was opium therefore which forced the British to set up the initial system of civil administration, of a common currency and the first factories to be set up in India. When the Chinese mandarins threatened to stop trade unless provided with larger share of the profits, it led to the Opium Wars or the Anglo Chinese Wars since it threatened the economic basis of the Raj. Chinese losses in these wars led to opening up of more Chinese ports for foreign trade and the ceding of Hong Kong to Britain under the Treaty of Nanking. These Unequal Treaties only strengthened the Chinese suspicion of the foreigners which marked its foreign policy till late 20th century. But it also resulted in opium trade and production being legalized in China leading to a significant ramping up of domestic production of opium in China. By the first decade of 20th century, almost 80% of global opium production was in China.

This meant the British needed another cash crop in India to sustain the economy. The opportunity presented itself through the Civil War in the USA. By the last 1860s, the Civil War in the USA directly impacted the slave-run plantations of the Southern states which contributed the raw cotton to the mills of Manchester. This supply constraint provided an opportunity to the enterprising businessmen in India (notably Birlas) to start trading in cotton in India and encouraging farmers to grow cotton or the dye Indigo. Thus, the Raj found another way of filling up its coffers. But that is another story.

The entire opium trade and Ghosh?s story deserves cinematic adaptation. It needs a director (hopefully Indian) who can tame this story and set it up on the scale that it deserves. Rarely have I felt the desire to have the written word transform into images on the screen as strongly since the time I read the Lord of the Rings. It was almost a decade since I read LOTR that someone took up the challenge. I hope someone does it sooner for Ghosh?s Ibis trilogy.