Caught in the undertow

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Caught in the undertow

Saturday, 03 November 2018 | Team Viva

Caught in the undertow

The book Calcutta Then, Kolkata Now brings to the fore unobserved changes in the city’s fabric. By Team Viva

Kolkata was once the intellectual and cultural capital of the nation but today it’s become hard to find a succinct description that would do justice to the city of joy. The state is no longer called West Bengal and the city too is caught between modernity and colonial times. With dilapidated structures from the Raj being torn down and a 62-floor building standing tall in the central business district of Chowringhee and more expansion planned, the urban landscape is no longer the one we read about it in Byomkesh Bakshi novels or films of Uttam Kumar.

The book features black and white pictures of places such as Mother House; the Marble Palace, built by the Mullicks of Sovabazar, who were bullion merchants; pictures of the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 claiming the lives of three million; another shows what used to be the city’s lifeline — the tram.

In visuals depicting the modern life in the city, one of them shows wrestlers and bodybuilders on the banks of Hooghly.

In another, a man with perfectly parted hair sits besides the carriage driver and seems unaffected by the stares from the cars nearby. This photo of the quintessential Bengali Babu is just one of the many fascinating images found in the two-part book published by Roli. It captures the essence of a people torn between their habits and forces of change.  The book is a sweeping ode to the city and narrates the story of modern India’s first capital through its past and present.

Author Sunanda K Datta-Ray, who captured the ‘Calcutta Then’, dives into the rich history of the city using rare images of its iconic monuments, including the Victoria Memorial under construction and the Howrah bridge that crosses the Hooghly river. Many of the photos in the book have never been seen before. Founder-publisher of Roli Books and also the photo editor of the book, Pramod Kapoor said, “I met around 40 old families living in the city, some of them were formerly zamindars (landlords) or linked to the maharajas, and some who settled there many years ago for business. I got disappointed at some places but also succeeded at others.” He added, “I have an umbilical connection to the city. I was born in Jorasanko and have very fond memories of the time spent there. I have visited Kolkata many times since my birth, but it wasn’t until late last year when I was researching for this book that I realised those memories cannot be that easily erased.”

Author Indrajit Hazra of ‘Kolkata Now’ said that “for visitors and those who once left the city, like I did, it can be a walk through time, a ride on a tram, or a constant return to the scene of old happy times on Park Street.”

The book was launched on November 1 by the Ambassador of France, Alexandre Ziegler.

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