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Calcutta: Two Years in
the City
All these books belong to the increasingly popular genre of metro literature, which deals with the life in major cities, trying to explore their social-cultural-political fabric — and get into the bloodstream of the city to explore the ebbs and flows of its metaphorical body. To the western, and, for that matter, even Indian consciousness, Calcutta is a city of abject poverty and filth. Calcutta slums are deplorable, but the city certainly does not deserve the badge of poverty that it's stuck with. Calcutta is more than that. It is much, much more and it needs dedicated exploration for one to discover its colour, culture and moods. Chaudhuri takes the reader on this journey of exploration, while making surprising discoveries himself. Apparently, having grown up in Calcutta, he was still reluctant to write about it again because he thought that he had used the city enough for three of his books ( A Strange and Sublime Address, Freedom Song and Afternoon Raag) till he was finally convinced to do so. To draw out the essence of the city, he gives us vignettes, not sweeping cityscapes. Short essays on varying topics and people, on elections, on the bhadralok, and on a beggar woman who shouts, "We may be beggars, but we aren't mad". Chaudhuri is a writer, academic and musician. He uses his consciousness of all three in his narratives. He's curious, he's edgy and sometimes rambling, but he's incisive, reflective and sometimes poetic. Calcutta is a decaying city, but its regeneration is noticeable. The author notes the renaissance with some surprise. He takes the audience along on the voyage of discovery of the city of Rabindranath Tagore, Jyoti Basu, Mamata Banerjee and the Naxalites. It is also the city of the Chinese fraternity and the race of Anglo-Indians — "Dings," as they came to be known superciliously among the children of the Calcutta rich. Anyone who has been in Calcutta, not Kolkata (thank goodness), knows well the old and popular tea shop, Flury's. Those who live there know of little Chinese restaurants and the Chinese shoe makers in New Market, the trams and hand-held rickshaws that traversed across the streets of Calcutta. If the author rues their passing, the reader shares the regret with him. Modernisation of Calcutta is reflected upon in terms of food, people and buildings, although, the city, says Chaudhury, "was born with the aura of inherited decay and life". The observations of the author get transposed in the words of his book as he walks along Park Street, Free School Street, now called the Mirza Ghalib Street, observing now, a rich Marwari family and then, the bohemian Bengali couple; He peeps into the Oxford Book shop, now all modernised and Melody, the music shop, now turned into Music World, selling shiny CDs. The narrative keeps changing pace and mood along with what the author feels at the moment of writing. The book could be called a series of elegant essays on the ‘Kormaisation’ of Calcutta.
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WHAT
is common between
Suketu Mehta's Maximum City, William Dalrymple's City of
Djinns, Altaf Tyrewala's Mumbai Noir and Amit Chaudhuri's Calcutta?