Sea of Poppies

by Amitav Ghosh

imagine that the world had turned itself upside down, so that the river had become the sky, crowded with banks of cloud; if you narrowed your eyes, you might almost think that the ships’ masts and spars were bolts of lightning, forking through the billowing sails. And as for thunder, there was that too, booming out of the sheets of canvas, as they flapped, slackened and filled again. The noise never failed to amaze him: the whiplash crack of the sails, the high-pitched shriek of the wind in the rigging, the groan of the timbers and surf-like pounding of the bow-waves: it was as if each ship were a moving tempest and he an eagle, circling close behind to hunt in the ruins of its wake.

yet beneath the surface of this farrago of sound, meaning flowed as freely as the currents beneath the crowded press of boats.

We are no different from the Pharaohs or the Mongols: the difference is only that when we kill people we feel compelled to pretend that it is for some higher cause. It is this pretence of virtue, I promise you, that will never be forgiven by history.’

more novelty too, because he had never before heard them said—and if he had, they would only have been wasted before, because he would not have been able to value them for their worth.