Bahram Mody In River Of Smoke

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The one character that stands out in River of Smoke is that of Bahram Mody, the Parsi trader from India. Bahram deliberately ignores any moral scruple regarding trading in opium. Even though he himself suffers from and condemns British trading practices in India, he involves himself in the exploitative trade merely for the sake of profit. Ironically, he submerges himself to opium addiction, falling prey to the very evil he has championed so long and finally commits suicide in an opium induced hallucinatory moment. The secondary storyline in River of Smoke deals with botany, in particular the search for the illusive camellias. The French orphan Paulette embarks on this quest with a British plant-hunter and gardener in a thematic inversion of the opium trade. If the contraband trade in opium is dependent on forcing an illegal product on China, Paulette’s …show more content…

As a professional soldier, he hates the Chinese men who prefer death to surrender, as they make him realise that he is only a hired killing machine. When he feels, death is upon him, he regrets the unworthy nature of his impending death; dying not for any cause he values, but trapped in a war, where his own sympathies are those with his enemies, justifiably defending their own village. Kesri 's dilemma epitomises the question a Chinese officer asks Neel earlier in the book - Why do these Sepoys fight for the British? The human narrative of the great imperial drive is conveyed through Kesri and other sepoys, mere cogs in the looming trade wars between two superpowers. The superior naval might of the British forces, coupled with their precision war planning results in a humiliating defeat for China. The opium war, which Ghosh captures in the final part of his trilogy, serves to show how the might of the gun is more often than not in use to serve the twin causes of “free trade” and

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