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Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History
In the popular imagination, Calcutta is a packed and pestilential sprawl, made notorious by the Black Hole and the works of Mother Teresa. Kipling called it a City of Dreadful Night, and a century later V.S. Naipaul, Günter Grass and Louis Malle revived its hellish image. This is the place where the West first truly encountered the East. Founded in the 1690s by East India Company merchants beside the Hugli River, Calcutta grew into both India's capital during the Raj and the second city of the British Empire. Named the City of Palaces for its grand neo-classical mansions, Calcutta was the city of Clive, Hastings, Macaulay and Curzon. It was also home to extraordinary Bengalis such as Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel laureate, and Satyajit Ray, among the geniuses of world cinema. Above all, Calcutta (renamed Kolkata in 2001) is a city of extremes, where exquisite refinement rubs shoulders with coarse commercialism and savage political violence. Krishna Dutta explores these multiple paradoxes, giving personal insight into Calcutta s unique history and modern identity as reflected in its architecture, literature, cinema and music. Calcutta is a City of Artists: Modern India's cultural capital; home city of Tagore, Ray and Jamini Roy; College Street and the annual book fair; a city of learning and books.
262 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 15, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 22, 2008
A good overview of the history of Calcutta. I wish it had a little more focus on the post-independence period, but it still prepared me well for my visit to the city.
September 26, 2025
#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads # of Calcutta
Krishna Dutta’s Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History is a panoramic and nuanced exploration of one of India’s most complex and layered cities, offering readers a rich tapestry of its social, cultural, and literary evolution over more than three centuries.
Unlike histories that reduce Kolkata to a mere colonial backdrop or a stage for political events, Dutta approaches the city as a living organism, examining the interplay between its physical landscape, its communities, and the literary and artistic expressions that have defined it. From its embryonic beginnings as a cluster of villages along the Hooghly River to its emergence as a cosmopolitan metropolis, Kolkata’s story is one of constant negotiation between tradition and modernity, local identity and foreign influence, continuity and transformation. Dutta’s work is remarkable in its ability to hold these tensions together, offering a narrative that is at once scholarly, accessible, and deeply evocative.
The book opens with an exploration of the earliest phases of the city’s development under the British East India Company. Dutta revisits the oft-mythologized founding of Calcutta by Job Charnock in 1690, situating it within the broader context of pre-existing settlements in Sutanuti, Kalikata, and Gobindapur. Here, the narrative foregrounds the interaction between local communities and European traders, emphasizing that the city’s emergence was less the result of a single individual’s vision than of gradual negotiation, commerce, and spatial appropriation. This early period sets the stage for understanding the persistent layering of Kolkata: physical, social, and cultural.
The city’s geography—with its marshlands, rivers, and intersecting trade routes—shaped the patterns of settlement and the distribution of power, just as its growing role as a trading hub invited a confluence of communities, each bringing their own customs, languages, and culinary and artistic practices.
Dutta then turns to the cultural consolidation of Kolkata in the 18th and early 19th centuries, a period often characterized by the rise of the ‘Babu’ class and the so-called Bengal Renaissance. This era saw the emergence of educated, affluent Bengali elites who sought to negotiate their identity under colonial rule, often blending European learning with local traditions. The narrative vividly captures the tensions between imitation and innovation, between adoption of Western norms and the assertion of Bengali cultural distinctiveness. Institutions such as the Coffee House became sites of intellectual ferment, while Kalighat painting, theatre, and early literary experimentation reflected the city’s hybrid sensibilities. Dutta’s account is notable for situating these cultural developments not as isolated phenomena but as responses to social, political, and economic conditions, highlighting the dynamic interplay between artistic expression and urban experience.
The British colonial presence, often characterized in literature through its symbols of authority and power, is here explored with nuance. Dutta illuminates the lives of the Sahibs—the administrators, merchants, and missionaries—without reducing them to mere caricatures of colonial domination. The chapter on the colonial imprint examines architecture, public spaces, and civic infrastructure, tracing how European sensibilities were inscribed upon the city’s physical landscape. Government House, Fort William, and other edifices were not just buildings but expressions of authority and cultural assertion, interacting with existing Bengali and indigenous structures to produce a cityscape of layered meanings. Dutta’s writing makes clear that these spaces were not inert; they were arenas in which social, political, and cultural negotiations played out, shaping the rhythms of urban life and leaving enduring legacies that continue to define Kolkata today.
Equally compelling is Dutta’s treatment of social reform movements and intellectual awakening in Bengal. Figures like Raja Rammohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar are not presented merely as reformers, but as catalysts for profound shifts in societal values and educational paradigms. Their work in promoting rational thought, modern education, and social reform—from the abolition of sati to advocacy for women’s education—transformed the intellectual climate of the city. Dutta situates these efforts within broader conversations about colonial modernity, indigenous agency, and moral authority, underscoring how intellectual life in Kolkata was a crucible in which new identities, discourses, and public spheres were forged. By focusing on these reformers, Dutta underscores the city’s role as a laboratory of social experimentation, where ideas, norms, and ethics were continuously debated, contested, and reinvented.
The narrative then moves into the political ferment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, detailing how Kolkata became a crucible for nationalist movements. The rise of figures like Subhas Chandra Bose and the proliferation of newspapers, literary societies, and public debates illustrate how the city functioned as both a symbolic and practical hub of anti-colonial activism. Dutta meticulously traces the interplay between political agitation and cultural production, showing how literature, theatre, and print culture not only reflected the zeitgeist but actively shaped it. He also attends to the consequences of imperial policies, such as the partition of Bengal in 1905, highlighting the ways in which state decisions reverberated through communities, altering demographic patterns, social relations, and cultural practices. By connecting the political and the cultural, Dutta presents a portrait of a city in which civic engagement, artistic innovation, and social identity were inextricably intertwined.
One of the book’s most striking contributions lies in its treatment of Kolkata’s literary culture. Dutta charts the evolution of Bengali literature in relation to the city’s changing urban and social environments. From early prose and poetry to modernist experiments and diasporic narratives, the city is presented as both setting and agent, shaping literary form, style, and content. Writers are not treated as isolated geniuses but as participants in broader cultural dialogues: responding to colonial pressures, negotiating indigenous traditions, and experimenting with new narrative techniques. In this context, Kolkata itself becomes a character—its streets, institutions, and public spaces influencing and being influenced by literary production. The city’s literary history, therefore, is inseparable from its social and cultural histories, and Dutta’s meticulous attention to these interconnections allows readers to appreciate the complex dynamics of creative life in a colonial and postcolonial metropolis.
Dutta does not confine her analysis to the elite or metropolitan culture alone; she is attuned to the lived realities of ordinary people and the ways in which their experiences shape and are shaped by the city. The influx of refugees following the Partition of India in 1947, the social upheavals and political mobilizations of the post-independence period, and the persistent challenges of poverty and infrastructural development are all situated within the narrative. By incorporating these dimensions, Dutta avoids romanticizing Kolkata’s past or presenting its cultural achievements in isolation. Instead, she shows how resilience, creativity, and community life have persisted even amid dislocation, crisis, and inequality. This approach highlights the city as a space of negotiation and adaptation, where multiple histories—colonial, indigenous, diasporic, and contemporary—coexist and interact.
Kolkata’s artistic contributions also receive considerable attention. The book details developments in theatre, music, cinema, and visual arts, demonstrating how the city has served as a crucible for innovation and experimentation. Figures like Satyajit Ray, Rabindranath Tagore, and contemporary visual artists are contextualized not only within the history of their respective art forms but also within the urban, social, and political life of Kolkata. Dutta illustrates how artistic production reflects and interrogates the city’s transformations, offering both critique and celebration. In particular, the intersections between literature, cinema, and everyday life reveal the permeability of cultural boundaries and the ways in which artistic expression is embedded in public discourse and social experience.
Throughout the book, Dutta’s prose balances scholarly rigor with narrative vitality. She combines archival research, literary analysis, and cultural commentary in a way that is detailed yet highly readable. The narrative moves fluidly between different epochs, themes, and scales of observation, maintaining coherence while exploring the city’s multiplicity. This stylistic agility allows her to engage readers who may be interested in history, literature, urban studies, or cultural analysis, without sacrificing depth or precision. The book’s structure, moving from the city’s early colonial formation to contemporary cultural life, reinforces the sense of temporal continuity while highlighting the dynamism and contingency that characterizes Kolkata’s history.
Moreover, Dutta’s attention to the interplay between geography and culture is especially noteworthy. The city’s rivers, roads, neighborhoods, and marketplaces are not merely backdrops but active agents in shaping social relations, artistic production, and economic practices. The differentiation between White Town and Black Town, the spatial organization of elites and working-class populations, and the development of neighborhoods such as North and South Kolkata are explored in terms of both their physical and cultural significance. In this way, the book provides a model for urban historiography that integrates material, social, and cultural dimensions, offering insights into how cities function as both spaces and processes.
In addition, Dutta’s work foregrounds the role of memory and narrative in the construction of urban identity. Kolkata’s literary and cultural output is presented as a repository of collective memory, where past events, social norms, and cultural practices are preserved, interpreted, and transformed through art, literature, and performance. By tracing the city’s literary history alongside its social and political development, Dutta reveals how narrative and history are mutually constitutive, how stories about the city shape its present, and how memory itself becomes a site of cultural negotiation. This approach emphasizes the importance of storytelling in urban life and situates Kolkata within global conversations about modernity, colonialism, and postcolonial identity.
Another important dimension of the book is its treatment of the city’s linguistic and social diversity. Dutta highlights how communities with different languages, religions, and social backgrounds have coexisted, sometimes uneasily, in a shared urban space. From the Bengali elites to Anglo-Indians, Armenians, Jews, and Chinese migrants, each group has contributed to the city’s cultural richness, leaving traces in cuisine, architecture, education, and public life. Dutta’s attention to these interactions underscores the importance of pluralism in shaping the city’s identity and challenges monolithic narratives of urban history. The city emerges not as a singular entity but as a dynamic network of intersecting communities, each with its own histories, contributions, and tensions.
Dutta also provides penetrating insights into the ways in which colonial and postcolonial governance influenced cultural and literary production. British policies, administrative structures, and educational reforms created conditions for both cultural exchange and cultural assertion. The development of newspapers, schools, and literary societies facilitated public debate, literacy, and critical thought, creating a climate in which Bengali literature and intellectual life could flourish. At the same time, colonial governance imposed social hierarchies and economic constraints that shaped patterns of artistic patronage, urban settlement, and social mobility. Dutta’s analysis demonstrates the complex interdependence between political structures and cultural life, showing how the city’s institutions, public spaces, and literary traditions were mutually constitutive.
The book’s treatment of the 20th century, particularly the periods surrounding Partition, independence, and postcolonial urban challenges, is both sensitive and analytically rigorous. Dutta captures the trauma and displacement associated with the influx of refugees, the struggles for economic stability, and the complex negotiations between tradition and modernity in a rapidly changing city. Political movements, class tensions, and the growth of leftist ideologies are explored alongside developments in literature, theatre, and cinema, illustrating how political and cultural currents intersected in shaping the city’s identity. This approach provides a holistic view of Kolkata as a living, evolving entity, where social, political, and cultural processes are inseparable.
Finally, what makes Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History particularly valuable is Dutta’s ability to synthesize multiple strands of inquiry—history, literature, urban studies, and cultural analysis—into a coherent narrative that is both authoritative and compelling. The book not only illuminates the city’s past but also offers tools for understanding its present and anticipating its future. By attending to both macro-level processes and micro-level experiences, Dutta creates a richly textured account that honours the city’s complexity, diversity, and resilience. Readers emerge with a sense of Kolkata not as a static relic of the past but as a dynamic, layered, and deeply human space, where history, culture, and literature continue to interact in meaningful ways.
In sum, Krishna Dutta’s Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to understand Kolkata in its full historical, social, and cultural dimensions. It transcends conventional urban histories by integrating literary, artistic, and social perspectives, demonstrating how the city’s physical spaces, communities, and creative output are interwoven into a coherent cultural fabric. Dutta’s meticulous research, nuanced analysis, and evocative prose combine to offer readers both depth and breadth, providing a richly textured, continuous narrative that brings the city to life. For scholars, students, writers, and general readers alike, the book offers an unparalleled lens through which to view Kolkata—a city whose streets, institutions, and artistic expressions continue to reflect and shape its multifaceted identity, a city alive with the dialogue of past and present, of memory and innovation, of tradition and modernity.
By tracing the city’s evolution from its early colonial roots to its contemporary status as a cultural and intellectual hub, Dutta not only chronicles events but also captures the rhythms, textures, and sensibilities of urban life. The book is a celebration of the city’s pluralism, creativity, and resilience, revealing how Kolkata has continually redefined itself through historical, cultural, and literary processes. In this sense, the book is as much a story of Kolkata’s people, their aspirations, struggles, and achievements, as it is a story of the city itself. Dutta’s work invites readers to walk through the streets, neighbourhoods, and institutions of Kolkata with a new awareness, to listen to its stories, and to appreciate the intricate interplay of forces that have shaped one of India’s most remarkable cities. In doing so, it affirms the enduring significance of Kolkata as a center of cultural vitality, literary innovation, and historical memory.
Give it a go.
Krishna Dutta’s Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History is a panoramic and nuanced exploration of one of India’s most complex and layered cities, offering readers a rich tapestry of its social, cultural, and literary evolution over more than three centuries.
Unlike histories that reduce Kolkata to a mere colonial backdrop or a stage for political events, Dutta approaches the city as a living organism, examining the interplay between its physical landscape, its communities, and the literary and artistic expressions that have defined it. From its embryonic beginnings as a cluster of villages along the Hooghly River to its emergence as a cosmopolitan metropolis, Kolkata’s story is one of constant negotiation between tradition and modernity, local identity and foreign influence, continuity and transformation. Dutta’s work is remarkable in its ability to hold these tensions together, offering a narrative that is at once scholarly, accessible, and deeply evocative.
The book opens with an exploration of the earliest phases of the city’s development under the British East India Company. Dutta revisits the oft-mythologized founding of Calcutta by Job Charnock in 1690, situating it within the broader context of pre-existing settlements in Sutanuti, Kalikata, and Gobindapur. Here, the narrative foregrounds the interaction between local communities and European traders, emphasizing that the city’s emergence was less the result of a single individual’s vision than of gradual negotiation, commerce, and spatial appropriation. This early period sets the stage for understanding the persistent layering of Kolkata: physical, social, and cultural.
The city’s geography—with its marshlands, rivers, and intersecting trade routes—shaped the patterns of settlement and the distribution of power, just as its growing role as a trading hub invited a confluence of communities, each bringing their own customs, languages, and culinary and artistic practices.
Dutta then turns to the cultural consolidation of Kolkata in the 18th and early 19th centuries, a period often characterized by the rise of the ‘Babu’ class and the so-called Bengal Renaissance. This era saw the emergence of educated, affluent Bengali elites who sought to negotiate their identity under colonial rule, often blending European learning with local traditions. The narrative vividly captures the tensions between imitation and innovation, between adoption of Western norms and the assertion of Bengali cultural distinctiveness. Institutions such as the Coffee House became sites of intellectual ferment, while Kalighat painting, theatre, and early literary experimentation reflected the city’s hybrid sensibilities. Dutta’s account is notable for situating these cultural developments not as isolated phenomena but as responses to social, political, and economic conditions, highlighting the dynamic interplay between artistic expression and urban experience.
The British colonial presence, often characterized in literature through its symbols of authority and power, is here explored with nuance. Dutta illuminates the lives of the Sahibs—the administrators, merchants, and missionaries—without reducing them to mere caricatures of colonial domination. The chapter on the colonial imprint examines architecture, public spaces, and civic infrastructure, tracing how European sensibilities were inscribed upon the city’s physical landscape. Government House, Fort William, and other edifices were not just buildings but expressions of authority and cultural assertion, interacting with existing Bengali and indigenous structures to produce a cityscape of layered meanings. Dutta’s writing makes clear that these spaces were not inert; they were arenas in which social, political, and cultural negotiations played out, shaping the rhythms of urban life and leaving enduring legacies that continue to define Kolkata today.
Equally compelling is Dutta’s treatment of social reform movements and intellectual awakening in Bengal. Figures like Raja Rammohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar are not presented merely as reformers, but as catalysts for profound shifts in societal values and educational paradigms. Their work in promoting rational thought, modern education, and social reform—from the abolition of sati to advocacy for women’s education—transformed the intellectual climate of the city. Dutta situates these efforts within broader conversations about colonial modernity, indigenous agency, and moral authority, underscoring how intellectual life in Kolkata was a crucible in which new identities, discourses, and public spheres were forged. By focusing on these reformers, Dutta underscores the city’s role as a laboratory of social experimentation, where ideas, norms, and ethics were continuously debated, contested, and reinvented.
The narrative then moves into the political ferment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, detailing how Kolkata became a crucible for nationalist movements. The rise of figures like Subhas Chandra Bose and the proliferation of newspapers, literary societies, and public debates illustrate how the city functioned as both a symbolic and practical hub of anti-colonial activism. Dutta meticulously traces the interplay between political agitation and cultural production, showing how literature, theatre, and print culture not only reflected the zeitgeist but actively shaped it. He also attends to the consequences of imperial policies, such as the partition of Bengal in 1905, highlighting the ways in which state decisions reverberated through communities, altering demographic patterns, social relations, and cultural practices. By connecting the political and the cultural, Dutta presents a portrait of a city in which civic engagement, artistic innovation, and social identity were inextricably intertwined.
One of the book’s most striking contributions lies in its treatment of Kolkata’s literary culture. Dutta charts the evolution of Bengali literature in relation to the city’s changing urban and social environments. From early prose and poetry to modernist experiments and diasporic narratives, the city is presented as both setting and agent, shaping literary form, style, and content. Writers are not treated as isolated geniuses but as participants in broader cultural dialogues: responding to colonial pressures, negotiating indigenous traditions, and experimenting with new narrative techniques. In this context, Kolkata itself becomes a character—its streets, institutions, and public spaces influencing and being influenced by literary production. The city’s literary history, therefore, is inseparable from its social and cultural histories, and Dutta’s meticulous attention to these interconnections allows readers to appreciate the complex dynamics of creative life in a colonial and postcolonial metropolis.
Dutta does not confine her analysis to the elite or metropolitan culture alone; she is attuned to the lived realities of ordinary people and the ways in which their experiences shape and are shaped by the city. The influx of refugees following the Partition of India in 1947, the social upheavals and political mobilizations of the post-independence period, and the persistent challenges of poverty and infrastructural development are all situated within the narrative. By incorporating these dimensions, Dutta avoids romanticizing Kolkata’s past or presenting its cultural achievements in isolation. Instead, she shows how resilience, creativity, and community life have persisted even amid dislocation, crisis, and inequality. This approach highlights the city as a space of negotiation and adaptation, where multiple histories—colonial, indigenous, diasporic, and contemporary—coexist and interact.
Kolkata’s artistic contributions also receive considerable attention. The book details developments in theatre, music, cinema, and visual arts, demonstrating how the city has served as a crucible for innovation and experimentation. Figures like Satyajit Ray, Rabindranath Tagore, and contemporary visual artists are contextualized not only within the history of their respective art forms but also within the urban, social, and political life of Kolkata. Dutta illustrates how artistic production reflects and interrogates the city’s transformations, offering both critique and celebration. In particular, the intersections between literature, cinema, and everyday life reveal the permeability of cultural boundaries and the ways in which artistic expression is embedded in public discourse and social experience.
Throughout the book, Dutta’s prose balances scholarly rigor with narrative vitality. She combines archival research, literary analysis, and cultural commentary in a way that is detailed yet highly readable. The narrative moves fluidly between different epochs, themes, and scales of observation, maintaining coherence while exploring the city’s multiplicity. This stylistic agility allows her to engage readers who may be interested in history, literature, urban studies, or cultural analysis, without sacrificing depth or precision. The book’s structure, moving from the city’s early colonial formation to contemporary cultural life, reinforces the sense of temporal continuity while highlighting the dynamism and contingency that characterizes Kolkata’s history.
Moreover, Dutta’s attention to the interplay between geography and culture is especially noteworthy. The city’s rivers, roads, neighborhoods, and marketplaces are not merely backdrops but active agents in shaping social relations, artistic production, and economic practices. The differentiation between White Town and Black Town, the spatial organization of elites and working-class populations, and the development of neighborhoods such as North and South Kolkata are explored in terms of both their physical and cultural significance. In this way, the book provides a model for urban historiography that integrates material, social, and cultural dimensions, offering insights into how cities function as both spaces and processes.
In addition, Dutta’s work foregrounds the role of memory and narrative in the construction of urban identity. Kolkata’s literary and cultural output is presented as a repository of collective memory, where past events, social norms, and cultural practices are preserved, interpreted, and transformed through art, literature, and performance. By tracing the city’s literary history alongside its social and political development, Dutta reveals how narrative and history are mutually constitutive, how stories about the city shape its present, and how memory itself becomes a site of cultural negotiation. This approach emphasizes the importance of storytelling in urban life and situates Kolkata within global conversations about modernity, colonialism, and postcolonial identity.
Another important dimension of the book is its treatment of the city’s linguistic and social diversity. Dutta highlights how communities with different languages, religions, and social backgrounds have coexisted, sometimes uneasily, in a shared urban space. From the Bengali elites to Anglo-Indians, Armenians, Jews, and Chinese migrants, each group has contributed to the city’s cultural richness, leaving traces in cuisine, architecture, education, and public life. Dutta’s attention to these interactions underscores the importance of pluralism in shaping the city’s identity and challenges monolithic narratives of urban history. The city emerges not as a singular entity but as a dynamic network of intersecting communities, each with its own histories, contributions, and tensions.
Dutta also provides penetrating insights into the ways in which colonial and postcolonial governance influenced cultural and literary production. British policies, administrative structures, and educational reforms created conditions for both cultural exchange and cultural assertion. The development of newspapers, schools, and literary societies facilitated public debate, literacy, and critical thought, creating a climate in which Bengali literature and intellectual life could flourish. At the same time, colonial governance imposed social hierarchies and economic constraints that shaped patterns of artistic patronage, urban settlement, and social mobility. Dutta’s analysis demonstrates the complex interdependence between political structures and cultural life, showing how the city’s institutions, public spaces, and literary traditions were mutually constitutive.
The book’s treatment of the 20th century, particularly the periods surrounding Partition, independence, and postcolonial urban challenges, is both sensitive and analytically rigorous. Dutta captures the trauma and displacement associated with the influx of refugees, the struggles for economic stability, and the complex negotiations between tradition and modernity in a rapidly changing city. Political movements, class tensions, and the growth of leftist ideologies are explored alongside developments in literature, theatre, and cinema, illustrating how political and cultural currents intersected in shaping the city’s identity. This approach provides a holistic view of Kolkata as a living, evolving entity, where social, political, and cultural processes are inseparable.
Finally, what makes Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History particularly valuable is Dutta’s ability to synthesize multiple strands of inquiry—history, literature, urban studies, and cultural analysis—into a coherent narrative that is both authoritative and compelling. The book not only illuminates the city’s past but also offers tools for understanding its present and anticipating its future. By attending to both macro-level processes and micro-level experiences, Dutta creates a richly textured account that honours the city’s complexity, diversity, and resilience. Readers emerge with a sense of Kolkata not as a static relic of the past but as a dynamic, layered, and deeply human space, where history, culture, and literature continue to interact in meaningful ways.
In sum, Krishna Dutta’s Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to understand Kolkata in its full historical, social, and cultural dimensions. It transcends conventional urban histories by integrating literary, artistic, and social perspectives, demonstrating how the city’s physical spaces, communities, and creative output are interwoven into a coherent cultural fabric. Dutta’s meticulous research, nuanced analysis, and evocative prose combine to offer readers both depth and breadth, providing a richly textured, continuous narrative that brings the city to life. For scholars, students, writers, and general readers alike, the book offers an unparalleled lens through which to view Kolkata—a city whose streets, institutions, and artistic expressions continue to reflect and shape its multifaceted identity, a city alive with the dialogue of past and present, of memory and innovation, of tradition and modernity.
By tracing the city’s evolution from its early colonial roots to its contemporary status as a cultural and intellectual hub, Dutta not only chronicles events but also captures the rhythms, textures, and sensibilities of urban life. The book is a celebration of the city’s pluralism, creativity, and resilience, revealing how Kolkata has continually redefined itself through historical, cultural, and literary processes. In this sense, the book is as much a story of Kolkata’s people, their aspirations, struggles, and achievements, as it is a story of the city itself. Dutta’s work invites readers to walk through the streets, neighbourhoods, and institutions of Kolkata with a new awareness, to listen to its stories, and to appreciate the intricate interplay of forces that have shaped one of India’s most remarkable cities. In doing so, it affirms the enduring significance of Kolkata as a center of cultural vitality, literary innovation, and historical memory.
Give it a go.
July 12, 2018
This is supposedly not a history book or a travel book, but something about its "spirit". I wonder if the other books on the series (I saw the promo of one on Tokyo) are also about the "spirit" of those other cities. The history of the city as well as of its luminaries is not any different from a few thousand other books written on the same; unless one considers the clever language a virtue of its own.
I was hoping for some perspective on the prospect of a renewal or revival of the city that lost its two reasons for existence. The city was created out of the necessity to provide a center for colonial rulers and the various leeches feeding on it, and to channel the resources supplied from the hinterlands. The achievement in education, literature and culture was truly impressive, and was also a direct result of the easy surplus generated by these two sources of status. The decline was inevitable when both its status as a colonial capital and its hinterlands were gone. The stagnation that set in in the next half-century is a result of the city and the state's failure to reinvent itself and to develop a culture of production, to replace the historical preoccupation with rent-seeking. It is no wonder that the city has fallen to a third-tier status in India, whereas other previously parochial towns have surged ahead with their grit and enterprise. This stagnation seems to have eroded even Calcutta's natural endowments, which is evident in the decline of the Hoogli Port despite the life support it received at the cost of drying off an entire nation downstream.
When there is nothing else, the default is to fall back on old glory, namely Tagore and Ray and Sandesh and colonial architecture. It would be great to read in some other work, which is not so soaked in the "Calcutta Spirit", whether the oversupply of culture and sophistication is capable of giving the city a newer identity and purpose, or if the self-gratification is a means and an end to itself.
I was hoping for some perspective on the prospect of a renewal or revival of the city that lost its two reasons for existence. The city was created out of the necessity to provide a center for colonial rulers and the various leeches feeding on it, and to channel the resources supplied from the hinterlands. The achievement in education, literature and culture was truly impressive, and was also a direct result of the easy surplus generated by these two sources of status. The decline was inevitable when both its status as a colonial capital and its hinterlands were gone. The stagnation that set in in the next half-century is a result of the city and the state's failure to reinvent itself and to develop a culture of production, to replace the historical preoccupation with rent-seeking. It is no wonder that the city has fallen to a third-tier status in India, whereas other previously parochial towns have surged ahead with their grit and enterprise. This stagnation seems to have eroded even Calcutta's natural endowments, which is evident in the decline of the Hoogli Port despite the life support it received at the cost of drying off an entire nation downstream.
When there is nothing else, the default is to fall back on old glory, namely Tagore and Ray and Sandesh and colonial architecture. It would be great to read in some other work, which is not so soaked in the "Calcutta Spirit", whether the oversupply of culture and sophistication is capable of giving the city a newer identity and purpose, or if the self-gratification is a means and an end to itself.
December 5, 2016
An excellent book on the history and evolution of Calcutta since the time of its establishment in the pre-East India company times to fairly recently. A broad sweep and comprehensive work. There are a few factual errors and some points of opinion that need to be addressed but other than that, this is a very readable book, perhaps the best in its genre of Calcutta related books.
Strongly recommended. Must read.
Strongly recommended. Must read.
October 17, 2015
Long and slow at times, it was also full of great examples of how Calcutta is a truly fascinating city to live in. Recommended to expats living in Calcutta.
November 13, 2016
A Story of a city captured really well..
November 13, 2017
I am not a great fan of non-fiction, but anything about Calcutta always draws me toward it.
March 24, 2022
Calcutta is a city I lived in for 18 years, but never felt like I came to know to any significant degree. Yet, it has still shaped me deeply. And now, as I prepare to move out, I make a preliminary effort to explore this city- in an effort to trace the roots of my self. For it is a fact that among the Bengali literary diaspora, whether spread out all over India or the world, a nostalgic vision of Calcutta looms large in their artistic imaginations.
This book manages to capture those two strange, contradictory pulls of this city- the feeling of artistic and literary achievement, and a certain sophistication; coupled with the repulsion engendered by the atmosphere of violence, the slums, communalism, and the deep sense of stagnation. The state of the city today is a strong proof of Nirad Chaudhuri's mischievous thesis that the best of Indian culture is only brought out through foreign rule. From the great second city of the British empire, the first great Asian metropolis (with its composite culture and architecture), which gave rise to the Western-influenced Bengali Renaissance and the great social reformers; as contrasted with the heart-rending 1943 famine, the Partition Refugees, the Naxalite and Maoist violence, and the 1971 refugee crisis; the city has seen a lot. And yet it still strives on, in its sheer messiness and decadence. A city synonymous with palaces and sophistication in the 19th century is now synonymous with poverty and stagnation in the 20th and 21st.
Nevertheless this book is a good primer, albeit necessarily a bit superficial (covering 330 years of history in 250-odd pages would be a difficult endeavour in any case, but is especially so for the confusing mishmash of cultures that characterize the city- British cultural influence, other European influences, Anglo-Indians, Chinese, Jewish, Armenian, Marwari, Punjabi, Afghani, other Indian influences, and of course the dominant Bengali majority- whether Hindu and Muslim, whether Kolkata natives, East Bengalis or other upcountry migrants; residuary aristocrats, the nouveau-riche businessmen, the middle classes, or the large majority that is the working classes)
This book manages to capture those two strange, contradictory pulls of this city- the feeling of artistic and literary achievement, and a certain sophistication; coupled with the repulsion engendered by the atmosphere of violence, the slums, communalism, and the deep sense of stagnation. The state of the city today is a strong proof of Nirad Chaudhuri's mischievous thesis that the best of Indian culture is only brought out through foreign rule. From the great second city of the British empire, the first great Asian metropolis (with its composite culture and architecture), which gave rise to the Western-influenced Bengali Renaissance and the great social reformers; as contrasted with the heart-rending 1943 famine, the Partition Refugees, the Naxalite and Maoist violence, and the 1971 refugee crisis; the city has seen a lot. And yet it still strives on, in its sheer messiness and decadence. A city synonymous with palaces and sophistication in the 19th century is now synonymous with poverty and stagnation in the 20th and 21st.
Nevertheless this book is a good primer, albeit necessarily a bit superficial (covering 330 years of history in 250-odd pages would be a difficult endeavour in any case, but is especially so for the confusing mishmash of cultures that characterize the city- British cultural influence, other European influences, Anglo-Indians, Chinese, Jewish, Armenian, Marwari, Punjabi, Afghani, other Indian influences, and of course the dominant Bengali majority- whether Hindu and Muslim, whether Kolkata natives, East Bengalis or other upcountry migrants; residuary aristocrats, the nouveau-riche businessmen, the middle classes, or the large majority that is the working classes)
May 11, 2022
Nice overview of the city. Appreciate how she brought together the political, economic, and cultural. Did get a big hagiographic at times and a few ethnic-stereotype-y comments.
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