The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

I suddenly have another author to add to my 'must read all possible works of' list. And i've only read two of his books so far. Can't wait for more. They're all bengal-themed, but that's not at all a bad thing. I love reading words that i catch now and then at home when my mom's talking to her sister or brother on the phone...

As always, there's some lines that just make me say, "How true!"...

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"There's so much i want to tell you, Piya,' he said, 'and maybe it would be easier to put into words if i didn't want to so much. It's like Moyna says,'



"Words are like the winds that blow ripples on the water's surface. The river itself blows beneath, unseen and unheard."


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Tearing open the envelope, she began to read.

'Dearest Piya

'What does it mean when a man wants to give a woman something that is beyond price - a gift that she, and perhaps only she, will ever truly value?
'This is not a purely rhetorical question: it is inspired by a genuine perplexity for i have never known this impulse before. For someone like me, a man whose chief concerns have always been with the here and now - an, let us admit it, with myself for the most part - this is new ground, uncharted terrain. The emotions that have generated this impulse are of a shocking novelty. Would it be true then to say that i have never been in love before? I have always prided myself on the breadth and comprehensiveness of my experience of the world: I had loved, I once liked to say, in six languages. That seems now like the boast of a time very long past: at Garjontola i learnt how little i know of myself and of the world.
'Suffice it to say then that i have never before known what it was to ensure someone's happiness, even if it should come at the cost of my own.

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