A review by bluepigeon
Calcutta: Two Years in the City by Amit Chaudhuri

4.0

I have never read Amit Chaudhuri's novels, but I can see that he is not a plot-mover; he is rather a mood-setter. Even in his essays about Calcutta, or Kalkota, there is a strong sense of moods shifting, memories languidly slipping through time, objects standing still, and people observing; not much happens other than conversations. Chaudhuri is at times an eager journalist, doggedly questioning everyone from Italian chefs (not to be confused with executive chefs!) to the very poor people who live on the streets. What I liked about most of his discourse is that he is not apologetic. He talks about "the help" and the difficulties of maintaining good help, the rocky relationship households have with the help, and never is he apologetic about having help, nor is he unaware of the thousand and one ethical and moral issues that surround the facts of belonging to a class that employs such help. He tries endlessly to understand the classes, and the history of Calcutta that he dissects is very much the history of classes. Very much aware of his own class, he is fixated on the middle class, its past, its present, and its image. At times very funny, at times very insightful, and sometimes a bit bitter, he recounts his memories of Calcutta as well as his interviews and experiences living in the city between 2009 and 2011.

Chaudhuri writes very much like an academic, and as a result, some discourses are a bit too "academic" for a casual book of essays, especially his long discourses about modernity and modern Calcutta. However, his essays "Universal Suffrage," "High Tea," "Italians Abroad," and "Study Leave" capture a very good balance, and manage to almost entirely escape the lofty academic discourse in favor of the hilarious, curious, melancholic, and the present.

Recommended for those who like history, cosmopolitan cities, and the mysteries of the middle class.