In an Antique Land: A Journey through Subaltern to Cosmopolitanism

The worldview of Ghosh is cosmopolitan in nature and spirit. With the help of his cosmopolitan worldview, Ghosh is able to perceive the world in a holistic light. The world is fundamentally a unified unit and has been divided artificially into national boundaries. Ghosh’s preoccupation with the lines and boundaries of nations substantially impacts his perception and it clearly manifests in his fiction as well as non-fiction. The writings of Ghosh predominantly raise the issue of the creation of nation-states, the division of the world into hundreds of nations and their overprotected borders resulting in distrust among nations and problems generated world over. In the view of the above idea-content, the objective of the present paper is to analyze In an Antique Land as an effort of Ghosh in the direction of delving into an unexplored region of history claiming a legitimate space for the subaltern consciousness that permeates an ethos of unity and wholeness. At this level of the subaltern, the cosmopolitan worldview of Ghosh is predominantly evident where human relationships transcend boundaries destroying self-centered and intolerant borders. At this level, all relate to each other and celebrate multiculturalism.