Letter from a scientist

Its a pleasure reading your book. Have read two books of yours, “Sea of Poppies” and “The Hungry Tide”. I am a Bengali and the first thing I do after finishing the book is to gift that book to my Dad. He loves his town, Dhanbad, but misses it as he lives in Rajasthan. Your book lets him relive his days in Dhanbad.

Today early morning 4 ‘o clock, I finished reading Hungry tide and cried for Fokir. Why did u kill him?  He was the only pure soul in the book.

The one sentence that I will always remember from this book is when Kanai tells Piya that protecting tiger is important for rich people and no one cares about the poor people being killed by these tigers. A poor man’s life is not important. This is a fantastic argument. (Sorry, I could not rephrase the lines exactly as i don’t have th book with me at the moment). I am a PhD student in India and relate very well to Piya and her distress due to her work. However, its nothing compared to that faced by the people of Tide country.

Visiting Sundarbans was always in my “To-do list”. However, I now want to visit the Tide country not for the tigers or the wildlife or the mysterious forests, but for the people living there. It would be my way (however small it might be) to acknowledge the efforts of these people for a mere survival.

Thank you for writing such wonderful books.

Regards,

Soma Ghosh
Indian Institute of Science
Bangalore