Nostalgia for Infernal City

Book review of 'The Epic City: The World on the Streets of Calcutta'

The Epic City

The World on the Streets of Calcutta

Kushanava Choudhury 

Bloomsbury Circus

238 pages; Rs 499

Right before the beginning of Mrinal Sen’s Padatik (1973), the following words appear on the screen, showing the skyline of Calcutta (now Kolkata) in black and white: “Everytime I return to Calcutta I feel it must be surely impossible that it can continue much longer like this… I find Calcutta an intimidating and even infernal city, unredeemed and probably doomed.” This is probably a feeling shared by many of us, who have left our hometown for greener pastures elsewhere in the country and abroad. While away, we are overwhelmed by an inexplicable nostalgia for it, but are also aware that we cannot return to live in Calcutta.

Kushanava Choudhury does the unthinkable: Taken to the US in 1990 by his scientist parents, he graduates from Princeton and gets a PhD from Yale, before returning to the city of his childhood and settling down there. He gets a job in The Statesman in 2001, when it had already entered the downward spiral that would, in a few years, dislodge it from its position of pre-eminence by “upstarts” such as The Telegraph. (Disclaimer: I worked at The Telegraph between 2010 and 2013.) The Epic City — written with a mixture of touristy wonder and genuine love — is an account of his experiences in Calcutta in the early years of this century, when it was still in the pincer grip of the Left Front. 

The book is framed by two telling narratives. The first one concerns a man who had been cuckolded by his brother. Mr Choudhury claims to have heard it at the iconic Chota Bristol bar, the haunt of the poets of the sixties, in central Calcutta: “The brother was a bachelor who lived under his roof. Everyone knew the score, but they kept living in the same home — a triangle of unhappy souls, none with any hope of escape.”  This lack of hope is a persistent feeling of many Calcutta residents. Naturally, Mr Choudhury’s decision to return to the black hole from which many would escape if given the faintest opportunity sparks curiosity among his friends and acquaintances.

He provides an explanation almost at the end of the book: “When I lost the city as a child, I lost the capacity to be fully myself... My childhood is an unreachable city down memory lane.” This is followed by an off-hand disclaimer: “that was never really why I came back, anyway.” In the first chapter, curiously titled “Midlife Crisis”, he describes his first attempt to settle in the city, and getting afflicted by the soporific ennui that infects its denizens with as much frequency as malaria: “Soon, I stopped going to work.” Much to the relief of his parents in New Jersey, he abandons his adventure and returns home for what he describes a “vacation”, and gets enrolled in a PhD programme.

Unfortunately for most residents of Calcutta, they cannot simply stop working or go off to a fancy US university. Mr Choudhury can because of his economic privilege. Others need to continue with their dead-end jobs, if they are lucky to get one, or struggle to scrape through somehow. During his stay in Calcutta, Mr Choudhury lives in the house of his parents’ professor, referred to in the book as “Sir”. The economic arrangements of this residence are missing: Did Mr Choudhury pay rent? Did he pay for food? 

“There are no jobs in the city,” he is told by Michael Flannery, the legendary desk editor at The Statesman with whom I have also worked, “so every guy on every street corner is running some small-time hustle to survive.” Mr Choudhury fails to show any empathy for characters — the brokers or dalals who take him and his wife around, looking for accommodation are represented in a comic manner. Their miserable lot — surviving from one commission to another — is hardly deserving of this. 

The strength of the book lies in its many narratives and linguistic versatility. Mr Choudhury is a sort of a flâneur, taking in the sights while walking down Esplanade, or having tea on Central Avenue or Vivekananda Road. Traditionally, the European flâneur is a rich man, with enough leisure to take in the sights of the city, while everyone else is hurrying to work. In Calcutta, though, the flâneur figure is a tad different: In Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (1963) and Jana Arnaya (1976), we encounter Arati and Somnath, both of whom are compelled to take to the streets to earn a living. While the metropolis liberates them in a way, it also claims a terrible price. In this context, Mr Choudhury is incongruent.

Not that he is wholly unsympathetic. In the final chapter of the book, he introduces us to Gosto Pal, a 1947 refugee settler in Bijoygarh. After working for a few decades at the Bengal Lamp factory, in Jadavpur, Mr Pal loses his job when the unit is shut down. He manages to survive, making clay idols, which is his caste and family profession. But as Mr Choudhury notes, not everyone is as lucky: “There are so many ‘Bengal Lamp suicides’.” This is a grim reminder that the nostalgia of those who can afford to be nostalgic about Calcutta is somewhat misplaced. Its streets are not the host to a global fair, as the book’s subtitle seems to claim; these are the inclement stages on which the struggle of life is played out.