ABSTRACT my paper consists of detailed study of The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh. I have basically worked on the Themes in the novel. Amitav Ghosh draws heavily upon the character, traditions and division of native land. I have discussed about how the boundaries made between countries are unnecessary. How nationalism is a so called concept and it leads to bloodshed and violence. The boundaries made between countries create violence. In The Shadow Lines Amitav Ghosh creates a vivid, funny and moving story which interests the reader. He exposes the idea of divisions as illusions. I have read the novel and traced the themes in it. The development of the themes is unique and creative which compelled me to choose this topic to prepare a summer project.

KEY WORDS:
Shadow Lines
Amitav Ghosh
Themes
Violence
Boundaries
Nationalism
Riots

1
INTRODUCTION
Amitav Ghosh was born on 11 July 1956 in Kolkata, West Bengal in a Bengali Hindu family to a lieutenant colonel Shailendra Chandra Ghosh. He did his schooling from the Doon school. And then did his degrees from St. Stephen College, New Delhi and Delhi School of Economics. He went to St. Edmund Hall, Oxford to complete a D.Phil. in social Anthropology with a scholarship.
He worked for the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi and earned his doctorate at Oxford before he wrote his first novel- The circle of reason, which won the Prix Medicis Etanger Award. His other books include The Shadow Lines (Sahitya Akademi Award), In An