THE SHADOE

WLINES

-AMITAV GHOSH

The Shadow Lines is a novel by Amitav Ghosh that was

published in 1988. The novel is a work of historical fiction that
explores the geographical area around the Bay of Bengal, the
Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean. The novel is written in the
first-person point of view and follows the narrator’s memories
of his family and their experiences during the Partition of India
in 1947.
About the Author
Amitav Ghosh, born on July 11, 1956, is a renowned Indian author known for his
novels that explore history, culture, and the effects of colonialism. He blends
fiction with real events and places, making his stories both informative and
engaging. Some of his famous works include The Glass Palace, The Shadow
Lines, and the Ibis Trilogy, which deals with the opium trade and migration in the
19th century. Ghosh’s writing is admired for its rich storytelling, deep research,
and ability to connect global and personal histories. As of now, he is still alive and
continues to write.
About the characters

The Narrator
The protagonist of the novel is its unnamed narrator. He is a
young boy born and raised in Calcutta. He
narrates the events of his early life, leaping back and forth in
time. He adores his uncle, Tridib, and enjoys his stories about
history and foreign places. His view of the world is significantly
shaped by what Tridib shares with him. He is also in love with
his cousin Ila and repeatedly feels hurt by her distant manner.
Finally, he is unsettled by his grandmother’s intense
nationalism. In the first half of the book, he recounts his
memories of Calcutta and London. In the second, he describes
the events leading up to Tridib’s death. His narration frequently
features digressions about history and politics, as he ponders the
way in which events reverberate across time and space. It is later
revealed that he pursues a graduate degree in history.
Tridib
Tridib is the narrator’s uncle. He is described as sensitive and
worldly. The narrator treats him with a great deal of admiration
and respect. At the same time, the narrator is occasionally
puzzled by the mysteries of his past. He refuses to use his
family’s status to move ahead in his career. As a child, he
lived in London with the Price family while he was receiving
medical care. He develops romantic feelings for May Price as
they engage in an exchange of letters. In the second half of the
book, the narrator recounts his visit to Dhaka with their
grandmother. He dies at the hands of a mob while trying to
protect May.
Tha’mma
Tha’mma is the narrator’s grandmother. Originally born in
Dhaka, she becomes the headmistress of an all-girls school in
Calcutta and moves there earlier in her life. She is respected
within the community and by the narrator’s family and is
portrayed as patient and strong-willed. At the same time, the
narrator notes the unnerving quality of her nationalist fervor as
well as her rampant classism. She dislikes both Ila and Tridib,
the former for her abandonment of India and the latter for his
refusal to use his family connections. Their relationship
deteriorates significantly by the end of her life, culminating in
her sending a letter to his university recommending that he be
expelled. Her determination to bring her uncle home from
Dhaka results in Tridib’s death.
Ila
Ila is the narrator’s cousin. The narrator is romantically
interested in her from a young age and frequently feels hurt by
her flippant treatment of him. When he inadvertently reveals his
feelings, she expresses sympathy. She shows an inclination to be
dishonest at times, fabricating stories that make her life seem
more glamorous. She comes from a wealthier background than
the narrator and, seemingly as a result, treats foreign places with
casual boredom. Later in life, she shows a strong preference for
Western culture, as she believes India is stifling her freedom.
She marries Nick Price and stays with him even after he cheats
on her with multiple women.
May Price
May is a family friend of Tridib and the narrator. She is a
professional oboist with a British orchestra. She develops a close
epistolary friendship with Tridib and eventually finds herself
falling in love with him.The narrator visits her on a few
occasions and discusses memories of Tridib. She eventually tells
him that she blames herself for his death.
Nick
Nick is the younger brother of May and a close friend of Ila’s.
He is described as having long, blond hair.He frequently makes
lofty comments about the future of business and industry,
though it is revealed that he lost one of his jobs because he was
accused of embezzlement. He marries Ila, who treats him
with reverence throughout the book. The narrator expresses
jealousy and frustration towards him. It is later revealed that he
is engaging in multiple affairs, though the marriage still
continues.

Shaheb
Shaheb is Tridib’s father. He is characterized as being
thoroughly Europeanized in a way that the narrator’s
grandmother finds distasteful. She repeatedly describes him as
useless. His promotion to a post in Dhaka precipitates their trip
there.
Mayadebi
Mayadebi is Tridib’s mother and Tha’mma’s sister. She is
described as decisive and strong.
Jethamoshai
Jethamoshai is Tha’mma’s uncle. She describes his efforts to
care for her family in her youth. She travels to Dhaka in an
effort to rescue him, only to cause his death at the hands of a
violent mob.
Mrs. Price
Mrs. Price is Nick and May’s mother. She is depicted as friendly
and polite, if sometimes oblivious to her children’s lives.

Summary
PART -1
While in London in the early 1980s, the unnamed narrator
recounts a series of stories and memories to
his cousin Ila and his uncle Robi. The stories and memories
belong to the narrator; his uncle Tridib; and his grandmother,
Tha’mma. The memories begin in the early twentieth century
when Tridib’s grandfather, Mr. Justice Chandrashekhar Datta-
Chaudhuri, befriends Lionel Tresawsen at séances in London.
Tha’mma was born in 1902 in Dhaka, British India. As a young
girl, Tha’mma’s father and her uncle, Jethamoshai, begin
feuding, so they split their huge communal house in half with a
wall. The two sides of the family stop speaking to each other,
and Tha’mma tells her younger sister, Mayadebi, that
Jethamoshai’s family lives in the “upside-down house” where
they do everything upside down and backwards.
PART-2
After Tha’mma and Mayadebi marry (Mayadebi marries the
Shaheb, Justice Datta-Chaudhuri’s son), they lose contact with
Jethamoshai. Tha’mma follows her husband as he works on the
railroad until he dies in 1936. At this point, her son, the
narrator’s father, is still a child. Tha’mma becomes a teacher and
refuses to accept help of any sort from her family. Though
Tha’mma had been very interested in the movements against
British rule in her youth, when the Partition happens in 1947, it
means little to her.However, she never returns to Dhaka since it
becomes the capital of the Muslim country East Pakistan.
PART-3
The Shaheb is a wealthy diplomat, and in 1939, he ends up
needing a special medical operation that can’t be performed in
India. Mrs. Price, Lionel Tresawson’s daughter, invites the
Shaheb and his family to live with her in London so that he can
receive medical attention there. Tridib, who is nine years old,
accompanies his father, while his older brother, Jatin, stays in
school in India. Tridib loves London and is fascinated by Alan
Tresawsen, Mrs. Price’s brother, and his friends Dan, Mike, and
Francesca. In the time leading up to World War II and the early
days of the Blitz, Tridib spends his days exploring bombsites
and listening to Snipe, Mrs. Price’s husband, tell stories. In
1940, a bomb hits Alan’s house on Brick Lane,killing him and
Dan. Later that year, Tridib’s family returns to India.
PART -4
Over the next decade, Mayadebi and the Shaheb have a third
son, Robi. The narrator’s father marries the narrator’s mother,
who soon gives birth to a son, the narrator. Jatin marries a
woman affectionately known as Queen Victoria, and the couple
has a daughter named Ila, who is the narrator’s age. Mrs.
Price, whose daughter May was an infant when Tridib was in
London, has a son named Nick. Ila’s parents are wealthy, and
she spends her childhood traveling around the world for her
father’s work. The narrator, on the other hand, never gets far
outside of Calcutta. Instead, he spends his time listening to
Tridib tell stories about London and other faraway lands. Tridib
teaches the narrator to use his imagination and explains that the
world in one’s imagination can be just as real as the outside
world. Ila doesn’t understand this—she sees too much of the
world to understand how one’s imagination can be anywhere as
good.

PART -5
For a time, Ila’s family lives with the Prices in London. When
she’s eight, her family visits Calcutta for a festival. The narrator
convinces Tha’mma to allow his family to accompany Ila’s to
their family home in Raibajar. When they meet Ila’s family in
Gole Park, the narrator’s mother is shocked that the
narrator,who spent weeks asking after Ila, is too shy to talk to
her. The narrator feels as though his mother betrayed him by
making it clear that he needs Ila more than Ila will ever need
him. Regardless, the family piles into the Shaheb’s two cars and
drive for hours. When they reach the massive house, Ila leads
the narrator into a half-underground storage room, which stores
a massive table that Tridib’s grandfather shipped back from
London. Ila decides that they’re going to play a game called
Houses which she plays with Nick in London.
PART -6
She informs the narrator of who Nick is, and the narrator
understands that Nick is his competition for Ila’s affection. Ila
draws a map in the dust of Mrs. Price’s house and adds a room
for Magda, her doll,who is the baby for the purposes of the
game. When everything is set, Ila tells the narrator what
happened to Magda at school that day: the ugly school bully
chased the beautiful blonde Magda home, yelling slurs at her—
but Nick Price saved her from being beaten up. When Ila starts
to cry, the narrator is angry and doesn’t understand why she’s
crying. Finally, Tridib walks in with the children and listens to
the narrator tell Ila’s story. He encourages the narrator to not call
Ila dumb for crying like the story is real, and he insists that
everyone lives in stories.
PART -7
In 1959, Tridib and May, who is nineteen at the time, begin
writing to each other. They exchange photos
after a year. In 1963, Tridib sends May a very long letter
recalling an experience he had as a boy in London, when he
watched two strangers have sex in a bombed cinema. He tells
May that he wants to meet her like those strangers did—as
strangers in a ruin. May is flustered, but she makes plans to visit
Tridib in India. Around the same time, Tha’mma, who is retired
and has time on her hands for the first time in her life, receives
word that her uncle Jethamoshai, who is in his nineties, still
lives in the family home in Dhaka. She believes that it’s her duty
to bring Jethamoshai home to India. Not long after this comes to
light, the Shaheb receives a job posting in Dhaka, and he,
Mayadebi, and Robi move there.

PART -8
Finally, Mayadebi invites Tha’mma to visit, and they make
plans to try to save their uncle from the growing unrest in the
Muslim-majority city. May makes plans to travel to Calcutta and
then to Dhaka with Tha’mma. Tridib decides to accompany
them to Dhaka.The narrator joins Tridib and his father to pick
May up from the train station. Over the next few days,
the narrator accompanies Tridib and May as they drive around
and see the sights. He shows her the table in Raibajar, and she
tells him that Ila was a victim of bullying, but Nick never saved
her. When they visit the Victoria Memorial, May becomes
suddenly emotional. Tridib tells her that it’s their ruin, which
puzzles the narrator. He understands that there’s a relationship
between May and Tridib that he won’t understand. Not long
after that, on January 4, 1964, Tridib, May, and Tha’mma leave
for Dhaka.

PART -9
The narrator joins Tridib and his father to pick May up from the
train station. Over the next few days, the narrator accompanies
Tridib and May as they drive around and see the sights. He
shows her the table in Raibajar, and she tells him that Ila was a
victim of bullying, but Nick never saved her. When they
visit the Victoria Memorial, May becomes suddenly emotional.
Tridib tells her that it’s their ruin, which puzzles the narrator. He
understands that there’s a relationship between May and Tridib
that he won’t understand. Not long after that, on January 4,
1964, Tridib, May, and Tha’mma leave for Dhaka.A few
days later, the narrator experiences a harrowing bus ride home
from school as the driver tries to protect the dozen boys from the
angry mobs in the streets. Meanwhile, in Dhaka, the Shaheb
warns Mayadebi and Tha’mma that trouble is brewing there, but
Tha’mma insists on seeing Jethamoshai anyway.
PART -10
A few days later, the narrator experiences a harrowing bus ride
home from school as the driver tries to protect the dozen boys
from the angry mobs in the streets. Meanwhile, in Dhaka, the
Shaheb warns Mayadebi and Tha’mma that trouble is brewing
there, but Tha’mma insists on seeing Jethamoshai anyway.
Thirteen-year-old Robi is excited to see “trouble” and goes with
them to the old house in Dhaka. There, a Muslim mechanic
named Saifuddin greets them and explains that a rickshaw driver
named Khalil cares for Jethamoshai. When Khalil arrives, he
leads his guests into the house. Jethamoshai doesn’t recognize
his nieces, but he tells Tridib that he’s waiting for his family to
return so that he can take them to court and gain full ownership
of the house. The driver races to the door and says that there’s
trouble, and they have to leave. Khalil agrees to drive
Jethamoshai in his rickshaw to Mayadebi’s house. When they’re
in the car, they turn a corner and come face to face with a mob.
It surrounds the car and breaks the windshield. When the mob
descends on the rickshaw, Tha’mma tells the driver to go,but
May gets out to try to save Jethamoshai. Tridib follows her, but
Tridib, Jethamoshai, and Khalil are all brutally murdered by the
mob.

PART -11
The narrator’s parents tell him later that Tridib died in an
accident. The following year, Tha’mma gives her beloved gold
chain away to fund the war with Pakistan and appears crazy to
the narrator. His mother explains that Tha’mma hasn’t been the
same since they killed Tridib.In college, the narrator continues
to both love Ila and find her frustrating, as she never understands
why he is so insistent on remembering Tridib’s stories or their
own childhood antics. Once, during a summer holiday, she
convinces the narrator and Robi to go with her to a nightclub.
Robi doesn’t want to go, but at the club, he forbids Ila from
dancing with another man. She screams at them that she lives in
London so she can be free of this kind of oppression. The
narrator tells this story to Tha’mma on her deathbed,
and it makes her extremely angry: she doesn’t think Ila’s kind of
freedom is real. In her anger, Tha’mma writes a letter to the
dean of the narrator’s school the day before she dies, telling the
dean that the narrator visits prostitutes and should therefore be
expelled.

PART -12
After seeing a lecture in Delhi, the narrator realizes that
although he never connected the events as a child, the riot he
experienced in Calcutta and the riot that killed Tridib in Dhaka
was part of the same political uproar. As he studies Tridib’s
atlas, the narrator discovers that borders are meaningless and
actually helped create the climate that brought on the riots in the
first place. The narrator goes on to pursue an advanced degree in
London. At one point, Ila takes Robi and the narrator to visit
Mrs. Price and introduces them to Nick. The narrator shows off
the power of Tridib’s stories by leading his friends around
London and through Mrs. Price’s house based off of the mental
maps Tridib created for him. Ila,Robi, and the narrator have
dinner at an Indian restaurant afterwards, and Robi admits that
he has a
recurring nightmare about the riot in Dhaka in which he can
never keep Tridib from getting out of the car.

PART -13
The narrator also reconnects with May, who plays oboe in an
orchestra. They spend Christmas with Mrs.Price, and May
suggests that Nick is lying about leaving his job in Kuwait: she
believes he embezzled money. Theres a blizzard that night, so
Ila and the narrator stay at Mrs. Price’s house in the cellar. Ila
undresses in front of the narrator, not realizing his feelings for
her, but she spends the night with Nick.
Back in London a few years later, Ila marries Nick. At their
party, the narrator gets very drunk and May
offers to take him home and put him to bed. The narrator
assaults May but feels horrible about it in the morning. She takes
him with her while she collects money for her worthy causes
and on a break, she talks about her relationship with Tridib.
PART -14
As the narrator prepares to return home a few months later, Ila
confides in him that Nick is cheating on her, though she refuses
to leave him. The night before the narrator leaves, he has dinner
with May. At dinner, May tells the narrator about the riots and
asks if he thinks that she killed Tridib. May tells him that she
used to think she did, but she knows now that Tridib sacrificed
himself and knew he was going to die. She asks the narrator to
stay the night and he accepts, glad to finally understand the
mystery of Tridib’s death.

The theme of Migration:

The theme of migration in The Shadow Lines is an important
part of the story, showing how people move between countries
and how it affects their lives and identities. Migration in this
novel isn’t just about traveling from one place to another; it’s
also about the emotional journey and the search for where one
belongs in a world divided by politics and history.

Ila is one of the key characters who shows the effects of

migration. She has lived in many countries, including England
and Egypt, because her parents moved for work. However,
instead of feeling connected to these places, Ila feels lost. She
doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere, not even in India, where
she was born. Her travels make her feel more disconnected from
her culture, as she struggles to fit in. Ila’s story shows how
migration can sometimes leave people feeling rootless, unable to
find a true home, even if they have traveled the world.

Tridib, another important character, has a different view of

migration. For him, moving between places like London,
Calcutta, and Dhaka is more about connecting with people and
understanding the past. He believes that borders between
countries are just lines on a map, and people can still share
memories and relationships across these boundaries. Tridib
teaches the narrator to use his imagination to connect with
places far away, showing that migration is not just about
physical movement but also about emotional connections and
memories.
The novel also talks about forced migration, especially during
the Partition of India in 1947. The grandmother’s story
highlights this. She had to leave her home in Dhaka when India
was divided into India and Pakistan. This separation was not her
choice, and even after many years, she still longs to return to her
old house. Her experience shows the deep emotional pain that
comes from being forced to leave one’s home. For her,
migration wasn’t just a one-time event; it left a lasting scar that
never healed.

The Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 is also important in the

novel. This war created Bangladesh as a new country, adding to
the changes in borders and identities that the characters had
already faced due to Partition. These historical events show how
migration, in some cases, keeps happening as political
boundaries continue to shift, affecting people’s sense of who
they are and where they belong.
Migration also connects to the narrator’s own journey. He
moves between India, Bangladesh, and England, but his
migration is not just physical. He constantly reflects on the
stories of his family and how these different places are tied to
their memories. The novel suggests that migration is not just
about traveling to new places; it’s also about carrying the past
with you—your memories, your family’s stories, and your
history.

The Shadow Lines shows that migration is not only about

moving to different places but also about finding a sense of
belonging in a world where borders and identities are constantly
changing. The characters’ experiences reflect the emotional
struggles that come with migration, whether it’s voluntary or
forced, and how it shapes their identities and relationships.
IMPORTANT QUOTES
1. "Freedom is like a horizon: you move towards it, but you
never reach it."
- Explanation: This metaphor highlights the elusive nature of
freedom. The characters seek freedom from the constraints of
political borders, history, and personal struggles, but true
freedom remains unattainable. Much like the horizon that moves
further away as you approach it, freedom is an ideal that can be
pursued but never fully grasped. This applies especially to the
characters who are affected by political divisions like Partition,
as they struggle to find a place where they can truly belong.

2. "Every word I speak, every word any of us speaks, is a

gesture in a direction beyond the reach of our voices."
- Explanation: This quote reflects the limits of language in
fully expressing human experience. The narrator recognizes that
while words can communicate thoughts and emotions, they
often fall short in capturing the depth of feelings or historical
complexities. In the novel, this idea shows how memory,
history, and identity are often beyond what can be articulated,
leaving gaps in understanding between people and across
generations.

3. "They had drawn their borders, believing in that pattern,

in the end of something, the beginning of something else."
- Explanation: This line critiques the drawing of borders
during events like the Partition of India. People believed that
creating new borders would solve problems and bring a new
beginning, but it instead created more division, loss, and
violence. The characters realize that borders are artificial lines
that don’t end the conflicts or divisions between communities
but rather intensify them, leading to confusion about identity and
belonging.

4. "The past is not a foreign country; it is a mirror that

allows us to see ourselves."
- Explanation: This quote reworks the famous saying "The
past is a foreign country" to emphasize that the past is not
distant but rather a reflection of who we are today. The narrator
suggests that the events and memories from the past continue to
shape the present. This is a central theme in the novel, as the
characters' lives are influenced by historical events like Partition
and the communal riots, which still resonate in their personal
and collective identities.

5. "It was as though we had been travelling not through

space, but through time."
- Explanation: This reflects the idea that journeys in the novel
are not just about physical movement between places but also
about moving through memories and history. The characters'
experiences of migration and displacement are as much about
the past as they are about the present. The narrator reflects on
how traveling between countries like India, Bangladesh, and
England brings them closer to understanding their own histories
and identities, rather than just new places.
These quotes from The Shadow Lines emphasize the novel’s
core themes of freedom, memory, migration, and the artificiality
of borders. Through the experiences of its characters, Amitav
Ghosh highlights how personal and historical events are deeply
interconnected. The characters' struggles with identity,
belonging, and understanding the past are mirrored by the larger
political events, such as Partition and the communal riots, that
shaped their lives. In the end, the novel shows that while borders
and time divide us, human connections and memories persist,
transcending physical and political boundaries.