Behind Shadow Lines by Amitav Gosh

Ghosh uses Shadow Lines as a way of telling us that the way we view ourselves is not necessary the way others see us, and until we, the reader, cannot get into a deeper understanding of ourselves, we will remain in the “shadow” of our enlightenment.

The story starts about thirteen years before the birth of the narrator, and ends on a night proceding his departure from London back to Delhi. This end I think is a semnificative one, as we can know Gosh is a humorous writer. Single words hide a wealth of meaning, for example, Ila’s mother as Queen Victoria; Also when grandmother finds out that her old Jethamoshai is still alive, and that he is living with a Muslim family in Dhaka. Going further on the plot, we can say that the title of the novel is also a struggle between light and dark. People, long way back were living in ‘darkness’, waiting for something, for the right moment to come, but this light wasn’t like they thought it would be, along with this light they take a step into the civilization, which needs time to take a prompt shape. Along with this light, with this way to enlighten people, comes several faces of violence. We encounter several evidences in the book which shows us various faces of violence which comes out by fighting for freedom. The author talks about a very real non-existing line, which divides nations, people and families. This line was also for what most of the people faught, gave their lives that that line shouldn’t be, shouldn’t exist between people, cultures, families. Also we can say that under these cosequences the past, present and future melted together, erasing any kind of demarcation. And what is more important, I think is that almost everything what we see through the narrator’s eyes, are erased of any kind of demarcation. Also what needs to be said is that the narrator has an active presence in the novel, which gets us more closer to the other characters, to their daily lifes, and happenings, which connect to each other, and at the same time they are separated from the various clauses of life in Calcutta, Dhaka, London, or somewhere else.

I think that the young generation forgot their purpose in life, beyond their work they started to feel more attracted to foreign countries, foreign cultures, and not of their own. This element has an important role in the lifes of all Indian people, of Indian culture because this means death to the culture. Everywhere we are we have to be able to define ourselves, to know where we are from and where we are heading. And this I think that in one way or another gives a purpose to our lives. In this way we can always feed-back to our ancestors, to places where we are from, and feel everywhere home, without living with the fact that we had forgot our culture . I think that this is key underneath the words, which express a rough fight for freedom. As everywhere the Indian culture is threatened by other cultures, which in one way or another leads to the disappearance of the two and the remainance of one large culture, which hasn’t got deep facts to show its time. That’s why young boys and girls are sent to learn in foreign countries, to became well educated and to be able to build for themselves a decent life. But sometimes, things aren’t going as we would like to because, in a larger country everything seems more beautiful, life seem to be better, which sometimes it is, but this doesn’t excuse them by not following the rules of their culture. For example I would like to bring t

Some topics in this essay:
Nick Price’, Tridib’s Ila’s, London Ila, Queen Victoria, Amitav Ghosh, Ila Unfortunately, Dhaka London, Shadow Lines”, Ila Nick, London Delhi, started feel, foreign countries, called incomparable grandmother, life sometimes, incomparable grandmother, ila nick, friend narrator, novel violence, novel’s plot, nick narrator, called incomparable,