ABSTRACT
Following the first and second partitions of Bengal, in 1905 and 1947, respectively, Hindu East Bengalis, even if not particularly religious, were faced with the urgency to re-house themselves in West Bengal. Many of the areas in South Calcutta were built for the exiled East Bengali middle classes by Bengali builders in what was then wetlands or ‘jungle’ on Calcutta’s urban margins. Traditional values in 19th and 20th-century Indian Calcutta were affected as much by the reactions to being colonised as the prejudices and actions of the colonisers. The urbanity of South Calcutta seems to allude more to the Bengal ‘village’ than colonial or European city: it is an urbanity set in pre-existent landscape, within a deep cultural and environmental context that has developed in relation to what is available in the landscape and a consequent clearly defined series of artisanal skills and traditions. The chapter suggests that people of the South Calcutta streets work within the Sindhu rhythms.
