In Amitav Ghosh’s novel, Sea of Poppies (which I reviewed yesterday ), there is a very interesting character named Paulette Lambert. Her father is a scientist who does not believe in God and religion. He brought up his daughter “in the innocent tranquillity of the Botanical Gardens.” He did not allow her soul to be corrupted by religion and God. The only altar at which she worshipped was that of Nature. The trees were her scripture and the earth her revelation. “She has not known anything but Love, Equality and Freedom,” her dying father tells another character from whom he seeks the favour of taking her out of the British colony. “If she remains here, in the colonies,” he says, “most particularly in a city like this (Calcutta), where Europe hides its shame and its greed, all that awaits her is degradation: the whites of this town will tear her apart, like vultures and foxes, fighting over a corpse. She will be an innocent thrown before the money-changers who pass themselv
Cerebrate and Celebrate