Shadow Lines. Review on Shadow Lines - Amitav Ghosh

The novel ‘Shadow Lines’ (1988) by diasporic writer Amitav Ghosh and winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1989), makes for an interesting reading.

It is a rather straightforward story, which follows the life of a young boy growing up in Calcutta and later on in Delhi and London. His family – the Dattachaudharis - and the Prices in London are linked by the friendship between their respective patriarchs – Justice Dattachaudhari and Alan Tresawsen. The narrative is in the first person. Ghosh very deftly makes use of the genre ‘stream of consciousness’ in this novel. The narrative makes constant forward and backward movements between different times and realities, enhancing the overall effect of the novel on the readers.

The characters in this novel – except that of Tridib – are realistically portrayed and are not larger than life. Each one is portrayed with all the weaknesses that make them endearing. Each one is believable and somewhat familiar, as if vignettes of people we know have been taken to form a separate and a whole identity. The narrator’s characters seem to be very real and we can relate to the trials and travails of his growing up years. But Tridib does not seem to belong to this world. He comes across as a ‘seer’, someone endowed with extra-sensory abilities. Inspite of the pace of the novel being slow and sedate, it still manages to retain our interest. Most of the novel is in a reminiscent mood.

The novel begins with vivid descriptions of the narrator’s eccentric but exceptionally intelligent cousin Tridib. Its through Tridib’s eyes that the narrator gets to know the world, while sitting in Calcutta. The narrator is in love with his beautiful cousin Ila. She, due to the lack of a secure ‘home’ because of her father’s transferable job, tries to maintain her sanity by relating herself to the ‘ladies’ wherever she goes. Ghosh builds up his narrative through an intricate web of memories, relationships and images. The personal lives of the characters and public events are depicted simultaneously.

The narrator, as a boy, is almost sucked into history. He becomes involved in a gamut of experiences: his old grandmother Tha’mma stuck in a family feud with her maternal relations in the erstwhile East Pakistan, her adamant efforts to take her estranged uncle back to India, her reminiscences of the past and the riots. The relationship with England that took Tridib and his parents to London, and many years later the narrator down the same streets and lanes with the help of Tridib’s vivid descriptions. The knack of the narrator to go to places hitherto unseen in a manner as if he had visited them before surprises us just as it surprises Nick and Ila. We can also identify and sympathise with the narrator’s one-sided love for his cousin Ila. We also feel sad for him when she marries Nick.. May Price’s love for Tridib Dattachaudhari with its hopeless and tragic end ultimately provides the narrator with a glimpse of the final redemptive mystery.

This novel deserves appreciation for not trying to explain its eccentricities by being profound. For putting into words what, for most of us, remains a nebulous knot of understanding or a half-idea. For being focused but without the distressful need to tie loose threads up into a neat bow on the last page. In short for not being a tired potboiler.

(I've not gone into much detail about the significance of the title and the symbolism because in my opinion, someone has already elaborated on that. For more enlightenment on this novel, please read the book! Happy reading!!!)