Exclusive - Reincarnation, Transmigration, Coincidences: Amitav Ghosh On Multiverse Called Earth

Reincarnation is a "phenomenon that occurs" and transmigration of souls has been acknowledged by the Greeks and Buddhists, renowned author Amitav Ghosh has said. Ghosh, whose latest book "Ghost Eye" is making waves over its broad canvas involving these and much more, also recounted some of the strange events that he has personally experienced, which, he said, makes him wonder if he has abilities to sense the future. 

"There are mysteries on this planet that we know nothing about," the author said in an exclusive interview with NDTV's Vishnu Som. 

Scientifically, these unacknowledged realities are no different from computer scientists call the multiverse. "But we have always lived in a multiverse... the multiverse exists," he said. "I mean, the moment you acknowledge the possibility of reincarnation, you're acknowledging a multiverse... We don't know what are these mechanisms through which this occurs. And as soon as we accept that, we accept that the world is infinitely stranger than we imagine," he said. 

"There are people on this planet who have certain kinds of visionary powers that can't be normally explained. And in some strange way, you know, our writers are like that as well," Ghosh added.

By way of explaining, he said there has been several times when he has written about stuff which later came true, "which is a very uncanny feeling". "I mean, you sort of ask yourself, can I sort of, do I have precognitive abilities?" he said.

As example, Ghosh - a storyteller par excellence -- recounted about the tsunami in the Indian Ocean that took place shortly after he wrote the "Hungry Tide" and Gopalkrishna Gandhi, then Governor of Bengal, commenting on it. 

Then, there was the wildfire in Los Angeles that took place around six months after his "Gun Island" was published. 

"An even stranger thing happened to me with an earlier book called The Calcutta Chromosome, where there's a very macabre scene that happens at a very specific address, No 3 Robinson Street in Calcutta. Now, I didn't know anything about Robinson Street. I had never been on Robinson Street until I wrote the book. Certainly, I knew nothing about No 3 Robinson Street. But years after the book was published, something incredibly macabre did happen over there. A man was found to be living with the remains of his dead relatives for decades," he said. 

Asked whether he believes in reincarnation, one of the central premises of "Ghost Eye", he said it is not a matter of belief, "because it is obviously a phenomenon that occurs".

"There's overwhelming testimony, there's overwhelming evidence. And I think here, especially in our part of the world, we all grow up knowing that, knowing people who have had past life memories," he said. 

"As children, we knew other children who had past life memories. I mean, this is all a part of the fabric of our existence... We know this phenomenon exists, but it is a very threatening phenomenon in so many ways, because it upsets everything we understand about the ordinary world. So we prefer to push it away... That's more the issue, I think," he added.

The other theme in Ghost Eye, "Metempsychosis" -- transmigration of souls to any life form - has been acknowledged by Buddhists and ancient Greeks, Ghosh pointed out. 

"Plato's Republic ends within a very long discussion of metempsychosis... Agamemnon (in Illiad) chooses to be an eagle rather to be reborn as a human being," Ghosh said, before pointing out an apparent anomaly. 

The mathematician Pythagorus, who developed the geometrical theorem that every school student has to learn, "was very, very powerfully influenced by these ideas of metempsychosis," he said. 

"And it is strange. As a child, I was taught the Pythagoras theorem.  But for Pythagoras himself, these were the ideas that were really important, and we are never taught about that," he added.

The title in "Ghost Eye", he said, is derived from a belief among Native American people that discrepancy in eye colour - which happens in a very rare genetic anomaly termed heterochromia -- indicates a certain kind of special vision.

"One eye looks towards ordinary reality, and the other eye looks towards another kind of reality. So, the phrase ghost eye is actually taken from Native American lore, if you like... but what I'm really trying to gesture at over there is that there are mysteries on this planet that we know nothing about," he added.