'Wild Fictions' by Amitav Ghosh: An eloquent testament to the life of the mind

In the summer of 1976, a 20-year-old Amitav Ghosh visited some 30 plus foreign embassies in Delhi, delivering letters that offered his services as a teacher. The actual intention was not to teach, but to travel. He wanted to be a writer, but how could he if he did not enrich himself through travel? As it happened, none of the embassies entertained his wish; but he persisted, and eventually got himself a scholarship to Oxford, reluctantly opting "for higher study principally as a means of seeing the world". Studying cultural anthropology at Oxford was liberating and would lead, through a…