What should you be reading on Kolkata?
This post emerged from a conversation that I had with Aparna Mitra, one of my friends. I happened to tag her on Twitter about a story published by The Guardian. The aim was to get her opinion on a list of books prepared by the newspaper to understand Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) as a city. The list had some honorable mentions, including the likes of Jhumpa Lahiri and Amit Chaudhuri, who in their novels and histories have portrayed this ‘paradoxical city’.
The reason for tagging her was to get an honest opinion from an insider, from someone who is well-read on these matters and can analyze the list critically. Her response was astonishing. In a series of tweets, she not just gave her list of books, themed around Calcutta, but provided a detailed explanation of each of her preferences.
The list was so richly-detailed that I didn’t want it to get lost in the storms of tweets, but to post it somewhere so that it can work as a future reference for me, and anyone who is interested in reading about Calcutta, understanding its history, and culture, and all those factors that have shaped it as a metropolitan city.
In her list, which I am reproducing here with her permission, included only English novels or Bangla novels with available English translations.
I suggest you start with Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Shei Shomoy (trans by Aruna Chakrabarti as Those Days). This one is a tour de force set in 19th century Calcutta that revolves around the life of Babu Kaliprasanna Singha and gives you a ringside view of the phenomenon that was the Bengal renaissance. On its pages, you will meet Vidyasagar, Keshab Sen, Debendranath Tagore, Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Dutta & other extraordinary men, and Calcutta as a vortex of creative energy that shaped our national life for over a century.
Step back from heady Calcutta and come to a quiet corner of rural Bengal to meet Satyabati, the charming eighth-year-old heroine of Ashapurna Devi’s Prothom Protisruti for which she received the Jnanpith. A child bride, Satyabati leaves her village for her in-laws’ home in Calcutta. She is fierce with deep reserves of strength, does not bend to what she is told is a woman’s place in the world and eventually leaves her husband. We are still in the late 19th century and Indira Chowdhury’s translation is called The First Promise. Btw this is the first of a trilogy. In the books that follow you meet Satyabati’s daughter and granddaughter. But maybe we’ll leave those for another day.
Fast forward to the Quit India movement and our revolutionary hero Bilu, in Satinath Bhaduri’s Jagori, is in jail for waging war against the British. It’s his last night in jail and he will be hanged in the morning. The story, in four sections, is narrated first in the voice of Bilu and then in the voices respectively of his father, mother, and brother as they wait for Bilu’s execution.
Now for Calcutta of the 50s and meet author extraordinaire Mani Shankar Mukherjee who went by Shankar. I would recommend pretty much everything by Shankar. The translation however exists only of Chowringhee and its sequel Thackeray Mansion. Follow these up with Jana Aranya, translated as The Middleman, and while you’re at it, watch again Satyajit Ray’s movie adaptation of the same. You can go on to watch the other two films of Ray’s Calcutta trilogy- Seemabadhha (Sankar again) and Pratidwandwi (Sunil Gangopadhyay) and now you’re firmly into the turbulent seventies and the Naxal movement looms large in Calcutta and in Bengali literature.
The definitive novel of the turbulent blood-soaked Calcutta of the seventies is of course Mahasweta Devi’s Hajar Churashir Ma for which she got the Jnanpith and which was later adapted by Govind Nihalani for the film Hazaar Chaurasi ki Ma. Gritty and searing, this is a compelling read. The book has been translated into English by Samik Bandhopadhyay.
My favorite English Naxal novels are Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland and Neel Mukherjee’s The Lives of Others. In Bangla, I would include Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s Ami Anupam but I hear the translation is turgid, so pass.
It’s been heavy fare thus far. So let’s lighten things up with Narayan Gangopadhyay's Tenida stories in The Best of Tenida. Tenida, Kyabla, Pelaram, and Habul reign over Potoldanga in Kolkata’s north where everyone lives on a bracing diet of weak, watery catfish curry, basok leaf broth, and potol. Things revolve around food and the antics of the foursome. It’s a riot.
Enter the detectives. Byomkesh and Feluda. Read whatever you like of Saradindu Bandopadhyay and Satyajit Ray’s creations, you can’t go wrong. Or just watch the movies. No sense in not including Amit Chaudhuri’s Afternoon Raag. My bad. It’s lovely. A must-read.
