ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the spatial configurations that emerged in Calcutta city at the end of the 1930s. War was declared in 1939 but Calcutta was affected only from the winter of 1941 when the city was bombed by the Japanese. The war interrupted many state sponsored projects of a 'civilian' nature and the end of the 1930s is a good vantage point to take stock of changes that the city had undergone in the previous decades. One major actor in the 1920s and 1930s had been the Calcutta Improvement Trust (CIT). Allister Macmillan who compiled a commercial guide on Calcutta could not help noticing the dramatic changes brought about by the Trust. Barrabazar, located in the heart of the city and the most important trading and commercial centre, got two new roads. Bazaars, like neighbourhoods, were seen as centres of insanitation and they too had invited regulation from the nineteenth century.
