Why a Booktrail?
2009-2011: It is clear from his writing how passionate and attached the author is to his city and his country.
Calcutta Two Years in the City
What you need to know before your trail
Chaudhuri guides us through the city where he was born, through the city he knows and loves as this is where he set his novels.
Having lived elsewhere, when he returns to ‘his’ city, he finds it very much changed. They say that you should never return to somewhere you have loved since you will be disappointed or shocked with what you find. Chaudhuri is all of these things and more but the lyrical way he considers his home town is a gift which he presents here to us the reader.
Travel Guide
If you want to find out how a great city has changed between 2009 – 2011 by a man who knows, then this is a guide through that city. The historic elections of 2011 provide a basis for which he looks back at what his city has become and what it once was.
Calcutta personified.
Amit Chaudhuri himself says that…’ vanished Calcutta (is) the single most insurmountable obstacle to understanding, or sympathizing with, the city today.”
Of course some of the most obvious changes are those such as the place names that have changed over time. To have gone back to a city you loved and grew up and been able to see the changes and understand them is a feat for any man but this Amit does with passion and clear explanation given in poetic prose. A better guide to the essence of the city we don’t think you could get to be honest .
He allows us to see things about the city most people would not notice – The kinds of windows for example on the houses or the nature of the noises on the streets – small details yes but when put together this is quite a picture he paints.
Calcutta used to be “the second city of the empire.” A city of business and culture but which has now been overshadowed by other Indian cities.
What about the people who live there now, the religions and the politics of the place? How is the city changing? Is change a good thing?
Welcome to Calcutta. A multifaceted city in every sense of the word.
Where Next?
