ABSTRACT
Politics and culture are organically related in the city of Calcutta. The period (1940s to 1950s), was chaotic and turbulent, yet, this was also a time of significant creativity in literature, art, films and music in the city. This is an unusual feature of any city but is interestingly characteristic of Calcutta. The originality of the work lies in blending poetry with historical writing, retaining the essence of both forms against the backdrop of the tumultuous events of the critical decades, as against the entire historical period of a city. This historical method together with twenty-one papers give the reader a sense of the pulse of this complex city ‘emerging creatively and chaotically from its colonial past’.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part one|50 pages
Ordering the Urban Space
part two|168 pages
War, Famine and Unrest
chapter seven|30 pages
When Mill Sirens Rang Out Danger
part three|128 pages
Communal Relations: Solidarities and Violence
chapter fourteen|21 pages
A City Feeding on Itself
part four|116 pages
Postcolonial Transition