The Imagery of Deeti’s Shrine
Gosh expounds, “The room was dark, with soot-blackened walls, and it smelled strongly of oil and incense. There was a small altar inside, with statues of Shivji and Bhagwan Ganesh, and framed prints of Ma Durga and Shri Krishna. But the room was a shrine not just to the gods but also to Deeti's personal pantheon, and it contained many tokens of her family and forebears – among them such relics as her dead father's wooden clogs, a necklace of rudraksha beads left to her by her mother, and faded imprints of her grandparents' feet, taken on their funeral pyres. The walls around the altar were devoted to pictures that Deeti had drawn herself, in outline, on papery poppy-petal discs: such were the charcoal portraits of two brothers and a sister, all of whom had died as children. A few living relatives were represented too, but only by diagrammatic images drawn on mango leaves.” The shrine depicts a religious ambiance that would be ideal for Deeti to conduct religious activities. Deeti venerates the gods and her kin (both existing and departed) in the room which incorporates sufficient and pertinent religious pictograms. The shrine is an exemplification of the intersection between Deeti’s conviction and existence.
The Imagery of the English Church
Gosh explicates, “The English church was nearby and the passage of the day was marked by the ringing of its bell. On Sundays, worshippers were called to service by the firing of a cannon. The gun-crew was paid not by the Carcanna, but by the subscription of the congregation: the opium factory being an institution steeped in Anglican piety, none of the residents begrudged the expense.” The proximity if the English church to the opium factory exemplifies the intersection between colonization and religion. Teachings at the church are obviously anticipated to appeal to the meekness of the natives so that they cannot oppose the exploitation which is exemplified by the opium factory. Truly, religion would not endorse opium farming considering the addiction that it provokes. Gosh’s deliberate location of the church alludes to the connections between religion and opium.
The Imagery of ‘Sudder Opium Factory’
Gosh writes, “Although the Sudder Opium Factory was indisputably large and well-guarded, there was nothing about its exterior to suggest to an onlooker that it was among the most precious jewels in Queen Victoria's crown. On the contrary, a miasma of lethargy seemed always to hang over the factory's surroundings… when they (monkeys) came down from the trees it was to lap at the open sewers that drained the factory's effluents.” Here, Gosh utilizes the imagery of the sewers to validate that the factory sponsors pollution. Alluding to the crown underscores that the factory is designed to maximally exploit the resource of fertility (which promotes opium farming) whose key repercussion is the devastation of the environment.
