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    In Antique Land

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    N Swetha
    In the novel In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh, the author explores the histories of a 12th century Jewish trader named Abraham Ben Yiju and his South Asian slave Bomma. The narrator in the present day travels to Egypt to study the lost city of Alexandria. Through examining documents, the narrator learns about the close relationship between Ben Yiju and Bomma, and that Ben Yiju eventually settled in Mangalore, India, breaking social barriers by marrying outside his community. When the author visits villages in Egypt in 1980, he finds the people have very different customs and views of culture than in India, and faces frustration as a foreigner when trying to explain his own cultural practices.

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    In Antique Land

    Uploaded by

    N Swetha
    281 views2 pages
    In the novel In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh, the author explores the histories of a 12th century Jewish trader named Abraham Ben Yiju and his South Asian slave Bomma. The narrator in the present day travels to Egypt to study the lost city of Alexandria. Through examining documents, the narrator learns about the close relationship between Ben Yiju and Bomma, and that Ben Yiju eventually settled in Mangalore, India, breaking social barriers by marrying outside his community. When the author visits villages in Egypt in 1980, he finds the people have very different customs and views of culture than in India, and faces frustration as a foreigner when trying to explain his own cultural practices.

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    In antique land

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    In the novel In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh, the author explores the histories of a 12th century Jewish trader named Abraham Ben Yiju and his South Asian slave Bomma. The narrator in the present day travels to Egypt to study the lost city of Alexandria. Through examining documents, the narrator learns about the close relationship between Ben Yiju and Bomma, and that Ben Yiju eventually settled in Mangalore, India, breaking social barriers by marrying outside his community. When the author visits villages in Egypt in 1980, he finds the people have very different customs and views of culture than in India, and faces frustration as a foreigner when trying to explain his own cultural practices.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    281 views2 pages

    In Antique Land

    Uploaded by

    N Swetha
    In the novel In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh, the author explores the histories of a 12th century Jewish trader named Abraham Ben Yiju and his South Asian slave Bomma. The narrator in the present day travels to Egypt to study the lost city of Alexandria. Through examining documents, the narrator learns about the close relationship between Ben Yiju and Bomma, and that Ben Yiju eventually settled in Mangalore, India, breaking social barriers by marrying outside his community. When the author visits villages in Egypt in 1980, he finds the people have very different customs and views of culture than in India, and faces frustration as a foreigner when trying to explain his own cultural practices.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    1.

    write about the co-relation between past and the present in


    Amitav Ghosh's “In an antique land.” (Exploring the past,
    two characters in the past, their relevance in the present,
    past customs, rituals stories, ancestral beliefs and how they
    affected the present.)

    In an Antique land by Amitav Ghosh is half narrative and half the


    study of small town in Egypt. In this novel the author depicts the
    culture of Egyptians and Indians. He explains how India is
    stronger than Egypt in terms of economy, infrastructure, military
    etc. The author as a single person in Egypt defends India by
    arguing that his country is culturally rich than Egypt.
    Ghosh searches about the history of a Jewish trader Abraham
    Ben Yiju and his South Asian origin slave Bomma. At present,
    the narrator spent his time in Egypt as a student studying the
    lost city of Alexandria. This book examines the author’s own
    heritage and experience beside the culture of Egypt. Narrator
    says that Ben Yiju and his friends were all orthodox, observant
    Jews, strongly aware of their distinctive religious identity but
    they were also part of Arabic speaking world. Author gets to know
    more about the relationship between Bomma and Ben Yiju.
    Bomma was a slave and during those period salves were used as
    apprentices, some were fictive ties of unrelated kinship, some
    shared the bond between master and slave which acquired a
    religious and spiritual dimension. Bomma was very close to Ben
    Yiju his master and was more a companion and partner to him
    than a slave.
    Ben Yiju settles down in Mangalore in India and marries a girl
    from the matrilineal community of Nair. Ashu was his love and
    three years later Ben Yiju becomes the father of a son. Here we
    can see that Ben Yiju married a woman from different community
    breaking the community barrier which happened in 12 th century
    itself.
    In 1980 author travelled to Egypt, a small village known as
    Lataifa, where he began to observe and learn about the Egyptian
    people and their lifestyle. He then tells them about Indian culture
    and customs, though the views about both the culture doesn’t
    match. People in Lataifa are more constrained to their custom
    and beliefs.
    People in Lataifa and Nashawy thinks that their religion and
    customs are more superior to other religion and people over there
    don’t even give a chance for the author to explain himself. So, the
    author was left helpless in the foreign land. When he went to
    meet Ustaz he met Amm Taha there and she asked the author
    about burning dead bodies in India and when people didn’t agree
    with his point of explanation author felt so frustrated. Thus, he
    also explained about the cultural variations and difficulties he
    had to face as a foreigner and Hindu.

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