River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh

 It's the second book in his trilogy - the first being 'Sea of Poppies'. This is also a signed copy I got from Amitav Ghosh when he visited the city in 2011. Somehow the size and the experience with 'Sea of Poppies' kept me off this one but I finally read it after 15 years. It's like most of his books - well researched, well written. However this one did not hold my attention too long until it got to the end.

There are three ships that get caught in a storm. Two convicts escape one ship (which was in the earlier book), one ship belongs to a rich Parsi opium trader and another to a biologist in search of rare plants. the rich Parsi, Bahram, has invested a lot of money to make a killing in the biggest haul of opium he has got in China where a lot of people like him are selling opium. The biologist finds the daughter of another famous biologist on an island and takes her in to search for that rare flower. She gets in touch with the song of a painter who updates her of the goings on in Canton (she cannot go for some reason) by a series of long letters. Turns out that one of the convicts on the ship is the illegitimate son of Bahram from his Chinese mistress who has died.

The Chinese have decided enough is enough and a new Commissioner steps in and says that all foreign - British mainly - traders selling opium must hand over the opium and leave. No further sale of opium is allowed. Its a loss of huge proportions and try as they do, they cannot change the ruling and give up their opium. The distraught Bahram dies. The girl is told that the flower is a mythical one and is not really true. The opium is melted in the river. The river of smoke is the river where opium comes from India and is traded by Britishers who have banned usage in Britain by the way, but encourage its sale in China. Obviously it is good business and the British are good businessman.

But then there are too many characters speaking strange languages, having different desires and motives, too many descriptions of mundane activities and events and details and nothing much happens until in the end things pick up some action. I found this same pattern with the first book also when after a long slow build up there is frenzied Bollywoodesque action at the end where the hero comes out from near death and leads a revolt on the slave ship. The one good thing is that each book seems to leave one enduring image from that book. Not my most favorite Ghosh book. I loved 'The Calcutta Chromosome' and 'The Hungry Tide' best. But it will be my most cherished one because I am hoping he will win the Nobel Prize one day and I will have a signed copy by a Nobel winner.