Chapter One
The vision of a tall-masted ship, at sail on the ocean, came to
Deeti on an otherwise ordinary day, but she knew instantly that
the apparition was a sign of destiny, for she had never seen such a
vessel before, not even in a dream: how could she have, living as she
did in northern Bihar, four hundred miles from the coast? Her
village was so far inland that the sea seemed as distant as the netherworld:
it was the chasm of darkness where the holy Ganga disappeared
into the Kala-Pani, ‘the Black Water’.
It happened at the end of winter, in a year when the poppies were
strangely slow to shed their petals: for mile after mile, from Benares
onwards, the Ganga seemed to be flowing between twin glaciers,
both its banks being blanketed by thick drifts of white-petalled
flowers. It was as if the snows of the high Himalayas had descended
on the plains to await the arrival of Holi and its springtime profusion
of colour.
The village in which Deeti lived was on the outskirts of the town
of Ghazipur, some fifty miles east of Benares. Like all her neighbours,
Deeti was preoccupied with the lateness of her poppy crop:
that day, she rose early and went through the motions of her daily
routine, laying out a freshly washed dhoti and kameez for Hukam
Singh, her husband, and preparing the rotis and achar he would eat
at midday. Once his meal had been wrapped and packed, she broke
off to pay a quick visit to her shrine room: later, after she’d bathed
and changed, Deeti would do a proper puja, with flowers and
offerings; now, being clothed still in her night-time sari, she merely
stopped at the door, to join her hands in a brief genuflection.
Soon a squeaking wheel announced the arrival of the ox-cart
that would take Hukam Singh to the factory where he worked, in
Ghazipur, three miles away. Although not far, the distance was too
great for Hukam Singh to cover on foot, for he had been wounded
in the leg while serving as a sepoy in a British regiment. The
disability was not so severe as to require crutches, however, and
Hukam Singh was able to make his way to the cart without
assistance. Deeti followed a step behind, carrying his food and
water, handing the cloth-wrapped package to him after he had
climbed in.
Kalua, the driver of the ox-cart, was a giant of a man, but he made
no move to help his passenger and was careful to keep his face
hidden from him: he was of the leather-workers’ caste and Hukam
Singh, as a high-caste Rajput, believed that the sight of his face
would bode ill for the day ahead. Now, on climbing into the back of
the cart, the former sepoy sat facing to the rear, with his bundle balanced
on his lap, to prevent its coming into direct contact with any
of the driver’s belongings. Thus they would sit, driver and passenger,
as the cart creaked along the road to Ghazipur – conversing
amicably enough, but never exchanging glances.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Sea of Poppies
by Amitav Ghosh
Copyright © 2008 by Amitav Ghosh.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC
Copyright © 2008
Amitav Ghosh
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-374-17422-4
