Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History

Rating:
Summary: A welcome introduction to a much maligned city
Review: Krishna Dutta does tremendous justice to a city that has quite unjustly, although, giving the perpetrators the benefit of the doubt, perhaps unwittingly been cast as an icon for poverty or human suffering, by media, some authors who have not yet given up Kipling's notion of the "white man's burden" and certain celebrities like the late Princess Diana, whose "acts of compassion" have caused many guilt-stricken people to spend a few thousand dollars apiece to fly out to Calcutta and donate a dozen shirts to the "dying and the poorest of the poor", when they could probably do a greater service to humanity by going to the underbelly of their own respective cities and spend that money on the poor and needy closer home. Krishna Dutta brings out the true image of Calcutta, complete with its history, heritage, culture and warts (all of which contribute to make it special, something that is true for all cities in the world). I sincerely hope that the book makes it to every reader who has been dazed by the sensationalism of Dominique Lapierre's City of Joy in the last few years. As an outsider who migrated to Calcutta. lived and worked there for a few years (and fell in love with the place) and then migrated away from there, I can say that people would be better off reading this book as an introduction to Calcutta, than they probably will from any other, least of all the works of Lapierre and Gunter Grass.

Rating:
Summary: Let's Not Distort The Issue
Review: Unfortunately, this book, and the review of it offered by Ashutosh Chatterji, is more about defending Calcutta from the western view of it than it is about the "cultural and literary history" that is the title of the book. I bought this book in Calcutta so that I might have a more in-depth history of the place I was visiting. Instead, I got a book full of opinions and one-sided propaganda. This is definitely an Indian's nationalistic view of the city of Calcutta and not an objective history lesson, as the book's title advertises. Whereas Krishna Dutta is indeed a gifter writer, she, or her publishing company, should have come up with a less-misleading title. Next time, pick up the "History of the Republican Party" by Rush Limbaugh or "The Cultural History of Russia" by Josef Stalin - just kidding of course.