ABSTRACT
A bilingual writer and academician of great repute, Kunal Basu rejects the institutionalised politics of conventional hegemonic narratives obtrusively and projects the often-ignored part of the city of Kolkata as the main focus point in his popular fiction, Kalkatta (2015). Kalkatta briefly touches on the painful history of Partition and the refugee crisis associated with it, as in his previous fictions in which history pervades his narratives but never prevails in his imagination. Kunal Basu’s object of analysis is how Kolkata resonates with the people coming from outside with the hope of finding a permanent fixture in the city. They find it hard to make it in a city that shows no mercy to them. With reference to Kunal Basu’s Kalkatta, the present chapter aims at critiquing the social system that makes a deliberate effort to hide the underbellies of the large metropolises like Kolkata by projecting a narrative that glorifies the developed and central parts of the cities.
