ABSTRACT
Popular Bengali cinema of the 1950s provides us with a rich visual archive of Calcutta. This chapter talks about a representative film of this period, Surjyatoran as a text, which throws light on diverse aspects of urban life and represents the city in myriad ways. Within the popular narrative structure of this film lies visual codes, which often lend themselves to interesting interpretations. Cinema is also one of the most intensely spatial forms of culture because it operates and is best understood in terms of its organisation of space. Urban planning or the lack of it forms a major part of a city's imaginary and of the discourses surrounding it. Since the 1950s, urban planning has been a primary area of concern for political leaders and administrators in India, and city building formed an important part of the making of the modern Indian state in the Nehruvian era.
