A lyrical look at greed

This book is an attempt to examine folklore through the lens of climate change.

The tiger is an enduring presence in folklore from several of India’s states, from the mystical Sundarbans in West Bengal to the dense groves of the Western Ghats. Author Amitav Ghosh retells one such tale set in the awe-inspiring ecosystem of the Sundarbans in his latest work, ‘Jungle Nama’.

The retelling of the legend of Bon Bibi, the guardian spirit of the jungle and Dokkhin Rai, the tiger, is in verse; an allegorical tale that warns against greed. In his ‘Afterword’, the author explains the context of the myth of Bon Bibi, who is still revered in the Sundarbans. He explains that the Bon Bibi legend is a coming together of Hindu and Islamic folk tellings.

Two men, Dhona, the rich one and Mona, decide to head to the tidelands in search of timber, wax and honey. They arrange for ships and men, among whom is Dukhey, a young man. In the jungle, Dokkhin Rai, the shape-shifting tiger, strikes a deal with Dhona. Leave behind the young man for my meal, he tells the rich one, in return for the plunders of the forest. The rich one does so but the young man invokes the guardian spirit, who along with her brother Shah Jongoli, rescues the youngster and sends him home. The invocation is done in a meter known as ‘dwipodi-poyar’ or rhyming couplets.

A sprinkle of vernacular

There are many retellings of the ancient legend, but the best print versions are 19th century compositions of Abdur Rahim Sahib and Mushi Mohammad Khatir, both in Bengali, as the author notes. Both the printed versions are composed in the ‘dwipodi poyar’. Amitav Ghosh adapts the legend and the meter, with each line having about 12 syllables and every couplet having 24 syllables. Form and content come together in harmony in this retelling. Take these lines for instance: “Then at last, his mother’s words rang in his head:/Use the meter of wonder, call Bon Bibi, she’d said. But how to find the words, in this state of panic,/with the beast about to spring, grim and satanic?” The meter of wonder to invoke the guardian spirit of the jungle, dwipodi poyar, is also the meter of rhyming couplets that the author uses.

The verse is delightfully sprinkled with the vernacular, as any reader of Amitav Ghosh is by now familiar with. “Was it a rakshas or jinn? Pishach or afreet?/It’s best to be gone before they scupper the fleet.” Readers familiar with Amitav Ghosh’s work will also recognise references to Bon Bibi and the contexts around it in ‘The Hungry Tide’.

The tale is a seemingly simple one, which as the author notes, may have received the treatment of a children’s tale in the ‘Before Times’. However, in the wake of climate change and humankind’s plundering of the only planet we call home, the tale serves as a moral take on humanity’s quest to harness natural resources beyond need. In the ‘Great Derangement’, his work of essays on climate change, Ghosh observed that not enough fiction revolved around climate change, the greatest crisis of our times.

While humankind’s quest for exploration has been a favourite theme with Ghosh in his past work, most famously the ‘Ibis Trilogy’, the ‘Gun Island’, one of his more recent novels, addresses questions around climate change. The lyrical ‘Jungle Nama’ is another attempt to examine folklore through the lens of climate change.

This slim book of verse helps you comprehend concepts of greed, living in harmony with the forests and the wild, and the power of imagination. The shape-shifting tiger and the spirit that guards over the forest, the invocation of verse to this she-figure, are all metaphors for something primal within all of us, something that is so closely bound to the land we inhabit, our roots and the earth we live on. ‘Jungle Nama’ is made richer by the exquisite illustrations by New York-based artist Salman Toor.