Amitav Ghosh
Where do I begin? Let’s start with stating the simple – I loved this book. I haven’t read such a poignantly moving book in quite a while!
With that out of the way, the story actually begins in Mandalay (Burma) in 1885, during the last days of the Konbaung Dynasty. The British forcibly depose the Burmese King Thebaw, his queen Supayalat and their daughters from “The Glass Palace,” so named for the large central hall which had crystal walls and mirrored ceilings. As looters raid the palace, Rajkumar, an Indian boy of 11, catches a glimpse of Dolly, one of the queen’s maids and “by far the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld, of a loveliness beyond imagining.”
The British exile the Burmese royals to India – first Madras and then Ratnagiri. From then on, we follow their separate narratives until they intertwine again when Rajkumar, after creating a business empire of sorts, traces the only love he has known. Ratnagiri shows us the various shades of King Thebaw and the love his adopted ‘subjects’ bestow on him over time, as well as his queen, whose relationship with the local populace, her family and servants, and her own traditions is far from linear. It also introduces us to the ‘gaolers’, as the queen refers to them – the District Collector and his wife, Uma. Uma then becomes another key character, and her nephew and nieces then connect with the progeny of Rajkumar/Dolly to move the narrative forward.
But enough of the story! It’s difficult to clearly say whose story this is, it belongs to each superbly etched character, and through these personal narratives, the author weaves in the larger socio-political and historical changes happening in Burma, India and Malaya. The first and second world wars as well as civil unrest in all these countries also show how the greater forces of history radically alter the human lives that appear in its path.
There are so many themes in the book! On the political front, there is monarchy and imperialism and the INA and its legacy. That brings with it morality and the concept of right/wrong and good/bad and how it changes even within people. In this context, Arjun would have to be my favourite character and many a lump-in-the-throat moments are courtesy him. Alison and Uma get us thinking of feminism and through Arjun and Dinu, we also get perspectives about man and his concepts of freedom. The canvass is huge in terms of geography and time (over a hundred years) and this allows the author to portray the various shades of human struggles and the common human condition very well. Even minor characters like the Collector, Kishan Singh, Saya John offer us plenty of food for thought, and that’s another indication of how richly layered this book is.
The five years of research clearly shows in the detailing of people, places, events, conditions. Except for the Burmese royals and Aung San Suu Kyi (and her father) every character is said to be fictional. Yet they seem real, and in that, perhaps, lies the success of this wonderful book!
P.S. In a very happy coincidence, I was reading this book while on a vacation to Malaysia. The mention of Georgetown, Butterworth, Sungai Petani, places I was at/near, began as the flight took off on my return journey! In some ways, it added to the melancholy.
