The Glass Palace is a fascinating novel by Amitav ghosh. It is an epic narration of a fiction deeply rooted in the pre-independence history of the Indian subcontinent and Burma.
My introduction to the works of Amitav Ghosh qualifies to be serendipitous by all means. It was in 2011, outside Mumbai station, that a young boy was selling books sitting on a pavement. ‘Pick any book for 20’ was his offer. Considering I was a student back then, the offer had seemed too tempting to the bibliophile in me to resist. And this was how I had picked up ‘Sea of Poppies’ by Amitav Ghosh among few other books. I vividly remember when I started reading ‘Sea of Poppies’, I almost put it down after reading 25-30 pages. Characters from a distant past were not relatable; and the slow pace of the narration wasn’t helping either. Despite this, the reader in me persisted and I realized as I completed reading 100 pages, the novel had me completely hooked. Characters from the pre-independence era had, by now, become affable and enticing. 
A week ago, when I picked up ‘The Glass Palace’ for a late night read, I experienced almost the same emotion. The book introduced characters from the pre-independence era and the story landed up in Burma. {At this point, perhaps it would be interesting to share how I got my copy of this magnificent work of literature by Mr. Ghosh. No, I didn’t buy it from a bookshop this time either. We were doing a book collection drive for school students. Suddenly, amidst the pile of children’s literature and science magazines, I found this copy of ‘The Glass Palace’. It was a man with lot of gray in his hairs who had put it there. When I told him that children will not probably read this, he replied that ‘You should’. And thus, I found myself in possession of another of Mr. Ghosh’s magnificent works by sheer serendipity.}
