Ocean of Churn

The map at the beginning of the book was enough for me to fall in love with what Sanjeev Sanyal had planned to embark on. It is one thing to know (intellectually) how water and its borders have shaped civilisation but its a completely awe-inspiring experience to really know. Sanjeev has managed to capture its depth and therefore glory.

A few highlights:

The south Indian connect to south east Asia, the Pallava king who went all the way to Cambodia to get a male heir whose roots could be traced to the dynasty. The child was twelve when he took over the responsibility. The matrilineal tilt was more towards the south and south-east than anywhere else, and Sanjeev refers ta the common neolithic roots being the reason for it. The brilliant kingdoms of today’s South India are rarely talked about, there are so many. But do read about Kharavela, one of the Kalinga kings to know more.

Our ships were ‘stitched’, though original to us, it could have been adopted form Yemeni and/or Omani Arabs. Many countries had their own designs of building ships. Indo Roman trade flourished in the first and second centuries, grudgingly by the romans as they were paying a hefty sum to the merchants for the goods. It wasn’t just merchants and explorers (many accounts of times have been documented by them) but also the rich women came in search of astrologers.

Ibn Battuta (Moroccan by birth) was real, I did not know that! Along with chronicling many events, he lead an extremely adventurous life including leaving behind a pregnant wife in Maldives.

The idea that we as Indians were sea-faring and adventurous and our merchants travelled up and down the Indian Ocean in search of fortune, fame and everything else is a joy to read. The violence of the region, whether the Mongols, Turks or the skirmishes with the Chinese eventually made us stop and almost start to fear the open sea. We stuck to land and moved on. Imagine if we hadn’t. Would the others, the Dutch, the Portugese and the many more have built a different equation with us, rather than looking to conquer and/or pillage. Some parts of the book talk about geo-political elements that plagued then, but eerily sound like what is happening today, politically and otherwise.

We are doomed to repeat history but with less violence each time (there was much, much more back then). So the hope is eventually the violence will leave the cycle and the the cycle will continue peacefully? I will never know.