Heady Steady, No Go !!!!. Review on Calcutta Chromosome, The - Amitav Ghosh

There is something about most of the Indian English writers, most of them would go settle down in plush places outside the country and when it comes to writing something more often then not they would chose an Indian subject. I don’t have a grudge with that, but what peeves me off is the fact that most of these writers portray India in such colors that it really leaves a bad taste in the mouth. One doesn’t have to talk about only that face of India, which is steeped in squalor, and corruption and casteism and other social evils, we also have a face of India, which is young, vibrant, and zealous to grow and outshine the rest of the world, why don’t the writers talk about that face of India. Why do they fall prey to cheap publicity stunts when it comes to writing on Indian subjects?

It is with this backdrop that I start a review on a book by yet another of that Indian breed of English writers, Amitav Ghosh and the book in question is Calcutta Chromosome. Please don’t let the beginning of the review make you believe in any way that the beginning was a peep into the book we are going to talk about, it was just a thought as I started this review and I thought I would share the same with all my readers. In case anyone has other opinions we can always talk of it in the comments section, I would be more then glad to talk about it.

The book has a rather bizarre story line up, and it would be tough to talk about this novel without disclosing the story a little bit. It begins in a new future New York, where Antar, a low-end programmer for a huge bureaucratic firm comes upon the battered I.D. card of Murugun, a man who vanished in India, he is an expert on Ronald Ross, the Nobel laureate who won the coveted recognition for his path breaking works on malaria. Murugun suspects that how could Ross, who is no more then an average medical student, stumble upon one of the greatest achievements of medical sciences and that too in one of the most dilapidated laboratories in remote India. He feels that Ross would have stolen the theory from someone else and got it published in his name.

The story has a number of sub plots interwoven together; another one is about Urmila Roy a journalist in Calcutta who is researching the works of Phulboni, a renowned writer who produced a series of strange “Lakhan stories”. It also talks about a strange force, which is guiding the secrets of this world; this hypothesis questions the very veracity of all the truths that we have been able to unearth as a result of the pain staking efforts of some brilliant minds. I will not disclose the story any further, as it would rob the entire fun of a thriller book.

In explicating his hypothesis of the ''Calcutta chromosome''--a chromosomal means of transmitting information, Murugan utters a Heisenberg-like uncertainty principle that seems to govern the writing: ''to know something is to change it.'' Without clearly articulating any particular alternative explanation for malaria, the work is stimulating for its intriguing allusions to genetics, culture, colonialism, Nobel scientists, and their relationship to the disease that continues to kill two to three million people every year. It is part medical thriller, part science fiction, and part literary conspiracy novel. It wins as a fiction thriller but where it fails is when it tries to come up with explanations on the scientific nuances of the issues that Ghosh raises during the course of the book.

Multiple layers, numerous personalities, and complex time frames wander through the novel. The many Castaneda-like visions and mind-altering encounters spin an atmosphere of intrigue and suspicion around Ross and his Indian associates. Urmila copes with the dilemma of educated Indian women, as she tries to keep a career against the sexist demands of her family, who are indifferent to her desires, the importance of her work, and the risks that she incurs. In that he also brings in occult and anti science, that is, a form of science that uses silence and not knowledge as a tool. Ghosh conjures that scientists involved with investigation into malaria got involved with this group which is trying to use guide the scientific discoveries of the traditional scientists in ways that will reveal to them the secret of immortality though inter-body transference.

What makes the story complex and bizarre is the swiftness with which Ghosh switches across geographies, chronologies and characters. The reader is at times baffled with the sheer pace of the novel and by the time one has finished reading the book, one is not sure whether they understood what Ghosh was writing after all. So in some senses the book comes across as a winner in the sense that it keeps you occupied and glued to it, gasping for more. But where it fails is that it leaves too many loose ends to be tied in. Ghosh himself is baffled with the subplots that he creates and in the end he does not know how to bring together all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.

I am a little confused myself to be honest when it comes to either I recommend the book or I don’t recommend it. As I recollect the story all I can think of is that it was a bizarre plot and it was handled in a queer way, I don’t recall the book for any shades of brilliance in terms of his story telling skills. Ghosh does come across as a writer who has a lot of ideas, which if handled properly could have made for wonderful reading, but having said that, the book in question can be termed very readable for the sheer pace and changing events that it chronicles. Well having confused you all with all that balderdash, all I would say is read it at your own risk, I wont want to be counted as someone who coaxed you into reading this.

Questions Do you think Indian writers are caught up in a time warp, not knowing whether to go forward or back, in time and space?

Which is the one Indian English writer whom you think has done justice to the Indian origins and has written stories true to his roots?

Why slowly vernacular writers are becoming a rare species?