Amitav Ghosh at Victoria Memorial Hall on Sunday. (Anindya Shankar Ray)

Victoria Memorial should be called Opium Memorial. That was the verdict from Amitav Ghosh, whose latest work tells the tale of history being made and unmade by opium — from the fields of Bihar to the salons of Canton.

The occasion was a discussion on Ghosh’s River of Smoke, organised by Victoria Memorial Hall in association with British Council, Calcutta, on Sunday evening.

River of Smoke, published by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books, was launched a day earlier in the city.

“Opium was the economic foundation of Calcutta in the 18th and early 19th centuries and much of the money that went into building Victoria Memorial came from the trade of opium. So, it should be called Opium Memorial,” said the author.

The discussion was steered by academician Supriya Chaudhuri and novelist Rimi B. Chatterjee and chaired by historian Sabyasachi Bhattacharya. Chaudhuri spoke about a novelist’s tendency to submit to the forces of history, saying that while great historical figures often found a mention in the story, it was the lesser-known characters that took the narrative forward. “My work is not a rupkatha,” replied a smiling Ghosh. The story has to be grounded in a certain time, a certain place, he said.

Bhattacharya lauded the author for his attention to detail, saying that often historians fail to dwell on nuggets from the past while authors like Ghosh weave them into the story. Ghosh agreed, adding that most works of recent historians appeared to be treatises on philosophy.

The discussion also threw up the question: why is Calcutta not Mumbai? Ghosh traces Mumbai’s spirit of entrepreneurship to the thriving opium trade among the Parsis of Bombay. One of his principal characters, Seth Bahram Modi, is such a merchant who makes his fortunes from opium.

Opium was cultivated in the Bengal and Bombay presidencies. The East India Company had complete control over the production in Bengal, and thus swallowed the entire profit. But they didn’t have as much hold over the Bombay hinterland and had to collaborate with private merchants. The gains from opium trade fuelled the spirit of business in Bombay, explained Ghosh.

Business being the biggest buzz in Bengal right now, may be Mamata Banerjee’s core committee on industry should grab a copy of Amitav Ghosh’s latest!