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Author Amitav Ghosh has long been one of India’s most celebrated writers. His books have been largely historical, concerned with migration and multiple identities.

His latest novel,Sea Of Poppies, the first of a trilogy, looks at the migration of indentured labour from India to Mauritius, against the backdrop of the Opium wars. In the city for the Mumbai leg of a countrywide book tour, Ghosh spoke to Ranjona Banerji about his book, the new India, the neglect of the hinterland, and the failure of the Left in Bengal

How did the story of Sea Of Poppies come about?
This novel is about the lives of people in the 19th century and the large-scale migration which started out of India to Mauritius, Trinidad, Guyana, Malaysia.

You could say that it’s the life of early NRIs — early migrants and indentured labour. The idea came to me when I was working on The Glass Palace— it was of course set in Burma which was full of Indians.

The sea has been a recurring motif in your books…
The sea completely fascinates me. Usually it is the Bay of Bengal. But this Arabian Sea which I’ve been staring at from my hotel window in Mumbai is a very beautiful and blessed sea.

The use of language is interesting, the British speaking English peppered with Indian words…
The language used in Shobhaa De’s Stardust had a great impact on me. You could call it Hinglish, but it’s actually English. I have only used words which are in the larger Oxford English Dictionary.

Words like bandook and tamasha have long been part of the English. It was in the 20th century that English shrank to exclude Indian words. English without Asian influences is unimaginable.

What do you think about the changes in India today — India shining and Bharat drowning?
There’s an undeniable excitement about India today. An incredible unleashing of energy which is palpable — there’s so much creativity, exertion and industry that there is just cause for celebration.

We’ve had hard times for 300 years and we’re regaining our lost place in the world. But the story is not simple. There is horrible poverty and a little bit of prosperity heightens the problem because of the way it creates expectations.

But it is troubling — the way the public gaze has turned away from the hinterland. People seem to want to think that they’re living in a fantasy land. No one can live like that. We have an incredible obsession with consumerism which is deeply troubling and unsustainable.

You’ve lived in America for many years. Should we be following the American dream?
We’ve been fed the idea that prosperity is the American way of life. But that’s dangerous. If every family in India became a two or three-car family, we would asphyxiate.

There’s nothing wrong with aspiring to a higher standard of living. But to want it through things which are so destructive of the common good is frightening. The American dream has collapsed around them and I find that people are depressed, their energy — and I don’t mean the oil crisis — is running out.

They’ve worked themselves to death. Society has hit its ceiling and is spiralling downwards.

But we’re also moving into this living on loans culture…
I’ve often wondered how Americans would do things like take a huge loan on their house just to go on a holiday. When I was growing up, debt was a bad word.

American society has made people into debt slaves, traps from which you can never escape. George Soros had warned that control of unbridled capitalism was required.

The other problem is that we humans have treated half of the important goods that we need — water, air — as free. Our founding fathers had the good sense to be sceptical about everything that was told to them.

You now live in Kolkata as well, what do you make of the Left?
The Left dream in Bengal has curdled. They’ve created a feeling of uncertainty. First they neglected industry and now they’re trying forcible industrialisation in an absurd manner.

And the language that they have been using is appalling. They have lost their moral standings in Nandigram — it is shocking that the Left should have stooped to such levels.

They should have aimed to make Kolkata a services and retail hub anda tourist destination. There are millions of descendants of the indentured labour who left India who still call themselves ‘Kalkatiyas’.

In Mauritius, they have preserved the place their ancestors landed as ‘Apravasi Ghat’, and they treat it with homage. But in Kolkata, the immigrants’ depot, from which they left, has all but disappeared — it has been built upon and forgotten.

I found it with great difficulty, near the Kalighat Temple on Tolly’s Nullah. If that was restored and developed, can you imagine how many would come to visit it?