Gun Island

 Gun Island - Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh’s latest novel, Gun Island, traces familiar crosscultural patterns evident in his earlier novels. There are journeys by land and water, diaspora and migration, experiences aboard ships, the world of animals and sea-creatures. Ghosh foregrounds environmental issues like climate change and the danger to fish from chemical waste dumped into rivers by factories, concerns that carry over from earlier books like The Hungry Tide and The Great Derangement.

Gun Island describes the quest of Deen, a scholar and collector of rare books, who returns from New York, his city of domicile, to the Sunderbans in West Bengal to unravel the mystery and legend of a seventeenth-century merchant, Bonduki Sada-gar, translated “The Gun Merchant,” and his persecution by Manasa Devi, mythical goddess of snakes. In a talk held in New Delhi after the release of the novel, Ghosh stated that the merchant “was a trope for trade.” The merchant and the goddess dramatize “the conflict between profit and the world.” In the novel, the goddess pursues the merchant to make him aware of other realities like the animal world: “Humans—driven, as was the Merchant, by the quest of profit—would recognize no restraint in relation to other living things.”

We learn that the old Arabic name for Venice was al-Bunduqevya, which is also the name for guns. Deen concludes that the name Bonduki Sadagar did not perhaps mean the Gun Merchant but the Merchant who went to Venice. When Deen travels to Venice to research further on the Gun Merchant, he discovers that many Bangladeshis are being employed as illegal migrant labor. Their hazardous journey across the Middle East and Africa and the strong, even militant opposition to their presence in the city by Italian authorities form a major segment of the second part of the novel, contrasting with the Gun Merchant’s past, prosperous journey to Venice (Rita Joshi - World Literature Today). 

Genre: Novel, Cli-fi (Climate Fiction)

• What is Cli-fi (Climate Fiction)?
• Climate fiction (sometimes shortened as cli-fi) is literature that deals with climate change and global warming. Not necessarily speculative in nature, works may take place in the world as we know it or in the near future. The genre frequently includes science fiction and dystopian or utopian themes, imagining the potential futures based on how humanity responds to the impacts of climate change. Technologies such as climate engineering or climate adaptation practices often feature prominently in works exploring their impacts on society. Climate fiction is distinct from petrofiction which deals directly with the petroleum culture and economy. (To read more, open this Wikipedia link)
• Brief History of Cli-fi : Freelance writer Dan Bloom coined the term cli-fi in 2011 in a press release for Jim Laughter’s Polar City Red, a novel set amid climate refugees in a future Alaska. Today, Bloom publishes The Cli-Fi Report, an online resource serving all things climate fiction. From his home in Taiwan, he told Means & Matters he sees cli-fi as an urgent genre, a route to “wake people up via storytelling.”

• Cli-fi and how it can help response to the climate crisis

Characters and Summary of 'Gun Island

1. Characters and Summary - 1 | Sundarbans | Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh

2. Characters and Summary - 2 | USA | Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh

3. Summary - 3 | Venice | Part 2 of Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh

Thematic Study of 'Gun Island

1. Etymological Mystery | Title of the Novel | Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh

2. Part I - Historification of Myth & Mythification of History | Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh

Part II- Historification of Myth & Mythification of History | Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh (Click to watch video)

Part III - Historification of Myth & Mythification of History | Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh (Click to watch video)

3. Climate Change | The Great Derangement | Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh

4. Migration | Human Trafficking | Refugee Crisis | Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh

Check your understanding: Appear in Online Test

Click here to open an online test / Quiz on Gun Island

Worksheets for Flipped Classroom Activities:

• 'Gun Island' Worksheet - 1: Use PDF of novel and ChatGPT (Open AI) for this activity.
• 'Gun Island' Worksheet - 2: Use PDF copy of novel, Open AI Chat GPT and Google Translate for this activity.
• The Objectives of these worksheets: (Click to open pdf)
• Enhancing comprehension
• Encouraging critical thinking
• Improving writing skills
• Enhancing vocabulary
• Supporting independent learning
• Make aware of the potential errors in AI generated responses

Points to Ponder:

1. How does this novel develop your understanding of a rather new genre known as 'cli-fi'?
2. How does Amitav Ghosh use myth of Gun Merchant 'Bonduki Sadagar' and Manasa Devi to initiate discussion on the issue of Climate Change and Migration/Refugee crisis / Human Trafficking?
3. How does Amitav Ghosh make use of 'etymology' of common words to sustain mystery and suspense in the narrative?
4. There are many Italian words in the novel. Click here to view the list of words. Have you tried to translate these words into English or Hindi with the help of Google Translate App? If so, how is Machine Translation helping in proper translation of Italian words into English and Hindi?
5. What are your views on the use of myth and history in the novel Gun Island to draw attention of the reader towards contemporary issues like climate change and migration?
6. Is there any connection between 'The Great Derangement' and 'Gun Island'? 

Additional Reading resources:

1. Towards a post(colonial)human culture: Revisiting Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island as a fall of Eurocentric humanism by Saikat Chakraborty
2. Climate and Culture in Crisis - Gun Island
3. Surreal Novel about Climate Change and Migration - Gun Island
4. The Era of Environmental Derangement: Witnessing Climate Crisis in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island 

5. With ‘Gun Island,’ Amitav Ghosh turns global crises into engaging fiction

6. Is Global Warming the 21st Century’s Black Death?
7. Climate Change and Refugee Crisis through Myth, Legend, History and the so-called 'irrational'

Q & A Session:

Thematic Study

Gun Island | Thematic Study from Dilip Barad

Iconographical Reading of Mythical Figures

This post will be regularly updated with possible readings of pictorial representation of mythical figures.

Here we go with Parshuram.

Parshuram Jayanti (Anniversary)
What significance do we find in the iconography of Parshuram in paintings? The first one is from an unknown painter in c. 1820. The seconds one is Raja Ravi Varma in c. 1920. The third is very popular on social media. (Can anybody share the source of this image?) The fourth is very recent digital painting.
If we read the belly - the stomach as the 'sign' in these images, what does it signify? The big belly is a very traditional 'sign' to signify the identity of Brahmin. Here, Brahmin can be read not only as an identity in Chtusvarna or caste but also as elite or high class or rich and happy leisure class people. What does the change from big belly of 1820 to slimmer in 1920s to the one with 6/8 packs of abs of recent portrayal of Parshuram signify? It surely is painted under the influence of modern day body building where in triceps, biceps, chest muscles, abs, and thigh muscles signifies an ideal macho-male figure. It is known to all that there is similarity in beauty pageants and these body building pageants. Both the ideal slim female figures as well as the ideas macho-muscular male figures are nothing but plastic and perfume. Then what does the change in the figure of Parshuram signify? Is it deeply repressed urge to be aggressive, belligerent, determined, assertive, and determined? Can it be said that those who are not so are more attracted towards such images as a part of wish fulfillment? Does it speak about owning aggression and disowning serendipity, calmness and sobriety? Does this iconography speak more about the urge of Indians to prove their mettle against the identity of 'soft nation'? At the time when so many armed personnel are killed by Naxals in Sukama and by terrorists in Kashmir, even though there is nothing new in it as it is repeated for several decades now, that deep urge to own aggression becomes even more stronger. Was it the similar urge among Brahmins to equate Kshatriyas that has captured the imagination in more recent portrayals of Parshuram and thus his looks are more aggressive?
At the same time, it is significant to observe that the deep desire to do something or be somebody is vented out in form of art and hence there is no urge left to do or be. So those who make or share such pictures of aggression, cannot be so or do so. The classic case is Bahubali2. See, how the people who were in search of answers for why jawans are killed, suddenly got engaged with why Katappa killed Bahubali? The film with similar macho-male figures will vent out the desire to 'be' or 'do' and again, with all emotions spent, we will be in the lap of serendipity, calmness and sobriety. The pictures, either still or moving, makes for an interesting reading when seen in the context of the milieu and moment which shaped it or are shaped by it.

Hanuman

George M. Williams ((2008). Handbook of Hindu Mythology. Oxford University Press. pp. 146–148) and T. A. Gopinatha Rao ((1993). Elements of Hindu iconography. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 58, 190–194.) mentioned that Hanuman is normally presented as 'Bhakta' / 'Sevak' of Lord Rama and is found kneeling down on his right hand side as an ardent devotee. He is also presented with Mace (Gada) and Vajra (thunderbolt) when events from his life are presented. By and large, Hanuman is remembered in popular culture as devotee, courageous, meditative yogi. Have a look at these random inages:

And then comes Karan Acharya's Angry Hanuman

This icon of Hanuman becomes so popular with the masses that you see it everywhere.

Sidhartha Bhatia wrote an interesting story for The Wire on this. Read it here.

He has made some noteworthy observations. Some of the observations are given below.

Karan Acharya's rendition of Hanuman 'image' gives completely different spin.

The image in question, done in dark saffron and black, shows Hanuman with a furrowed brow, glowering eyes and a scowl. The monkey god has very different qualities in Hindu lore but the work projects ultra machismo that fits in well with the self-image of the Hindutva oriented male. Acharya says his Hanuman has “attitude not aggression”, is “powerful, not oppressive”. Those who are displaying it with pride may not necessarily think so.

It is the kind of image that can be used and amplified across multiple platforms and could transmit just the message that . . .  'The Hindu is effete no more; he is angry and ready to take on anyone, violently if necessary'.

Hanuman fetches the herb-bearing mountain, in a print from the Ravi Varma Press, 1910's

The young demography of India may no longer like Raja Ravi Varma's Hanuman. The angry Hanuman ticks off all the key boxes from the right-wing point of view – not only is it hyper masculine and forceful in its representation, it is also modern. This is clearly graphic art, possibly done on the computer, in a stylistic way that would appeal to a younger demographic. They may not be attracted to the soft-focussed, kitschy, calendar representations of yore that can be seen in homes and shops all over India. No self-respecting young Hindutva warrior will want to stick a work of Raja Ravi Verma on his SUV; this looks technologically advanced enough to use with pride and arrogance.

Isn't this iconographic reading of the mythical figures enigmatically captivating and fascinatingly stimulating?

Iconography of Mohammad, the Messenger

Now a days, it is popularly believed that depiction of Mohammad, the Messenger in painting is prohibited and hence considered blasphemous.

It was not so in past. There are many paintings available online. More to come on this.

As of now, if one is eager to read more on this, click on these sites:

1. Here is what you need to know about how Islam views depiction of Prophet Mohammad - https://www.pri.org › stories › you-c...

Here's what you need to know about how Islam views depictions of Prophet Muhammad

2. Drawing the Prophet - Islam's Hidden History of Mohammad's Paintings - www.theguardian.com

Web results

Drawing the prophet: Islam's hidden history of Muhammad images

3. Prophet was once glorified in art - https://www.wbur.org › 2015/01/16

Web results

The Prophet Muhammad Was Once Glorified In Art | Here & Now - WBUR

And many more to come . . . . 

Universal Human Laws in 'The Waste Land'

Universal Human Laws in the modern epic 'The Waste Land' by T.S. Eliot.

The connection between epic and myth is that of an egg and the chicken. Just as the famous riddle by Sphinx ("What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?"), whether the egg came first or the chicken is the riddle which puzzled many for centuries. Is myth the product of an epic or does epic sprout from the myth? The sphinx riddle was answered by Oedipus ("Human Being") and the 'egg-chicken' one by scientists ("Researchers found that the formation of egg shells relies on a protein found only in a chicken's ovaries. Therefore, an egg can exist only if it has been inside a chicken"). Similarly, we can say that myth pre-exist the epic. In fact, epic poet legitimizes myth as history or truth. The epic is the daughter of the mother, Myth/s. Thus, an epic can be studied as myth. The tools and theories to study myth can easily be applied to epic.  

Are myths / epic subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Or are they just entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? Functionalism explains human society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions, and institutions. A functionalist reading of myths/epic might extract the universal human laws.

Have a look at this presentation with various Universal Human Laws in 'The Waste Land'.

Universal Human Laws in The Waste Land (T.S. Eliot) from Dilip Barad

Task:

After studying these Universal Human Laws, would you like to give priority to the UHLs which you find more Universal than the other? Click this link to open an online form and give your priority: