‘Wild Fictions’ by Amitav Ghosh: An eloquent testament to the life of the mind

In the summer of 1976, a 20-year-old Amitav Ghosh visited some 30 plus foreign embassies in Delhi, delivering letters that offered his services as a teacher. The actual intention was not to teach, but to travel. He wanted to be a writer, but how could he if he did not enrich himself through travel? As it happened, none of the embassies entertained his wish; but he persisted, and eventually got himself a scholarship to Oxford, reluctantly opting “for higher study principally as a means of seeing the world”.

Studying cultural anthropology at Oxford was liberating and would lead, through a newfound interest in the Middle Ages, to further travel – this time to Egypt, to do fieldwork for a DPhil in the discipline. He did that in a small village in Beheira, near the town of Damanhour. He was 24. Growing up in Nehruvian India, he had always had an interest in Egypt; and during his fieldwork, he observed two things: rural Egyptians were pretty knowledgeable about Hindi films and their stars, and were heavily reliant on “Kirloskars” – water pumps manufactured by the Indian company of that name. It was de-colonisation and the Non-Alignment Movement that made that moment possible...

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