Hidden History and Marginalization in Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome

Abstract

Abstract

Amitav Ghosh immerges into a story of medical journalism and tries to explain the chromosome system, advancing other medical discoveries, popular rituals, scientific technology, hallucinations, computers controlled by multinational companies. Within the local and globalized elements, we find strange figures of Marginalised, like Mangala, a clever and witty scientist but an uneducated ? a subaltern who comes to discover how the malaria bug can be used to regenerate decaying brain tissue in the last stages of Syphilis. The British scientist Ronald Ross researches about his experiments and he somehow goes in a process of discovery of how mosquitoes transmit malaria through the marginalized characters like Mangala and Laakhan. He was awarded Nobel Prize in 1902 for his work on the life cycle of the malaria parasite. Marginalized who are the actual discoverers cannot come into light because of their low status and uneducated background. The novel is framed by the story of Antar, a lonely, overworked Egyptian data analyst, and Murugan, his Indian colleague. Murugan discovers from the discovery of malaria of the great scientist Ronald Ross that someone ?had systemtically interfered with Ronald Ross’s experiment to push malaria research in certain directions while leading it away from others?. Ghosh narrates about the science of malaria, a disease dependent on multi-connection, enmeshed in the logics of a colonial counter science. The Calcutta Chromosome is both a science fiction and a barrier that must be overcome in order to explore the unknown and the subaltern. Murugan wants to follow Ross trail, and that of some of the mysterious figure around him. At last he finds it is Mangala, picked up at Sealdah railway station in Calcutta and Laakhan, as assistants in the research for the discovery of malaria. She appears to be both the high priestess of a secret medical cult offering a cure for Syphillis which eventually lead to Ross’s winning the Nobel Prize. Ghosh’s narrative discredits the Western scientist and discovers the truth of actual discovery of Mangala which is the hidden truth from the records of the marginalised society and medical historiography, whose secret history is discovered by Murugan. Thus it is a quest for discovering the discovery of the marginalized and their role in the discovery of malaria in the novel.