In these times of social distancing, Calcutta Nights , a recently translated crisp vintage work from 1923, beams up from the past the whole...
In these times of social distancing, Calcutta Nights, a recently translated crisp vintage work from 1923, beams up from the past the whole human mess of city life as we may fail to experience for a long time now – enticing , contagious with its mirth, sorrow and decadence, yet ultimately safe. Calcutta-ness is both a cult and a code.
That Calcutta, totem pole of cult, is a distilled city, a Xanadu rich with local detail yet universal, contemporary yet not belonging to any particular period, a continuum of experience. No wonder then, that this wondrous city, simultaneous epicentre of renaissance, nationalism, reform movements and debauchery, should inspire city sketches, first made popular in the mid and late 19th century by the inimitable Hutum Pyachar Naksha. Decades later Hemendra Kumar Roy, prolific and popular author of detective fiction, adopted a nom de guerre to have a go at chronicling the scintillating night life of Calcutta in the 1920s.
If books were bordello windows, their sepia light beckoning, Calcutta Nights would be one such, quite literally. A salacious account of what the night unravels, the book takes you behind the scenes, reports on the microcosm of hedonism, the power plays, symbiotic relations, the intimacies of a prostitute with her regular...
