Neighbours India and China share a pathological relationship says eminent author Amitav Ghosh, whose latest fiction is set in the 19th century opium trade between the two countries
"For me India and China share a pathological relationship. That neighbours should have conflicts and difficulties is normal, but that people should know nothing about each other is not normal," Ghosh said at a function here last evening.
He was in conversation with diplomat and former Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon about his just launched final book "Flood of Fire" in the Ibis trilogy.
Menon pointed out that Ghosh's book lays bare complexities of the relations shared between the two nations. In the book although the Indian soldiers were fighting for the British and against the Chinese yet their sympathies lay with their neighbours.
"We tend to fall into two schools (of thought). One where India China relationship is about 1962 and that is bad, and the other is the 1000 years of friendship," he said.
Menon was India's Special Representative under the UPA government to discuss with his Chinese counterpart ways to address the protracted boundary issue.
Set in the first half of the 19th century, Ghosh's latest book is preceded by "Sea of Poppies" (2008) and "River of Smoke" (2011). The former was shortlisted for a Booker and the latter for the Man Asian Literary Prize.
