Amitav Ghosh's Blog, page 13

In Memory of Ayaz Quadir

  In 2008, while traveling in Bangladesh, I was invited to go on a boat-trip in the Sundarbans. Amongst the group on the boat was a boy by the name of Ayaz Quadir, who seemed not much older than own teenage son (this was deceptive, for he was actually 22). In the course of the [...]

From a reader in Rome

  Through the marvelous works you are publishing (books and blog on the web side) I’m learning very much about certain parts of the history that were completely unknow to me untill a couple of years ago. I actually had a good school education, in Italy, so I always thought, that my knowledge of the main [...]

From a Correspondent with Bhojpuri Connections

    May 2012 Dear Mr Ghosh It was a privilege to hear you speak at the Greewich Maritime Museum in late February. We spoke very briefly as you were signing books and you said I could drop you an email. I’ve been meaning to email you for months and actually started drafting this email [...]

István Perczel and India’s Syriac Heritage

    I wrote about Dr István Perczel, of the Central European University in Budapest, in my post of April 9, 2012 (‘Hungarian Scholar Finds Bonanza in Kerala Archive’ – here is a link to his website ‘Project for Preserving the Manuscripts of the Syrian Christians in India’). Recently an unexpected opportunity arose to meet [...]

Captain Frederick Marryat and the British Museum Buddha

  Rupert Arrowsmith is an art historian and author  of Global Modernism: Early Twentieth Century Art and Literature in Tokyo, Shanghai, Calcutta, Bombay and London (I reviewed the book on this site on 21/07/2011;  see also this earlier post on the Goan painter Angelo da Fonseca). Recently Rupert mentioned to me that a prominently displayed [...]

From a Trinbagonian reader

    Oy good sir, As a lover of Naipaul and a London-born Trinbagonian, I think your article on Naipaul is note-perfect. I had to write immediately to tell you so. It bears mentioning that despite my name, I am neither Muslim nor Indo-Trini. In fact, being half Nigerian, am definitely Black, and find on [...]

Shared Sorrows – 18

    Shared Sorrows: Indians and Armenians in the prison camps of Ras al-‘Ain, 1916-18 – 18   On November 26th Sisir and his comrades reached Tripoli; and on December 4th they embarked on a ship that took them to Port Said. But before they could embark, there ensued one of the strangest episodes in [...]

Shared Sorrows – 17

    Shared Sorrows: Indians and Armenians in the prison camps of Ras al-‘Ain, 1916-18 – 17   Sisir Sarbadhikari went to the station early to wait for the train that was to carry the Indian POWs out of Ras al-’Ain. Along with four friends from the Bengal Ambulance Corps, he was able to get [...]

Shared Sorrows – 16

    Shared Sorrows: Indians and Armenians in the prison camps of Ras al-‘Ain, 1916-18 – 16   Aroundthe end of  October 1918, when it was clear that Germany and its allies were facing defeat, the hospital in Ras al-’Ain was abandoned by the German doctors who had been running it. The Indian POWs and [...]

Shared Sorrows – 15

  Shared Sorrows: Indians and Armenians in the prison camps of Ras al-‘Ain, 1916-18 – 15   The fate of his Armenian friend Ilyas weighed heavily on Sisir Sarbadhikari. Later in his memoir he writes: ‘I still think of [Ilyas]. A boy of fourteen or fifteen; a really good fellow. Did he manage to get [...]