Weaving the Warp and Woof of an Amazing Landscape Old and New

Mitali Chakravarty, without being a resident of Calcutta, knows the city intimately and at multiple levels of consciousness. She is ‘a probashi, with roots splayed’ (p. 49), but she wanders with ease through the bookstores lining College Street and happily enjoys the watered-down brew at the Coffee House. Mitali is equally at home in the upmarket Park Street, and recalls the city’s chequered history at Prinsep Ghat. In a delightful flight of imagination, Queen Victoria holds a conversation with the poet in the splendid gardens of Victoria Memorial, and the imperious questions are about the postcolonial condition: ‘Do the commoners all/ live their dream without/ the colonial regime?’ (p. 28). Questions about Calcutta’s protean character can never be answered. And Mitali Chakravarty’s opening poem ‘Ooh Calcutta!’ is a clever pun on the naughty musical ‘Oh Calcutta’ (1969, off Broadway) which had no connection with the city of Calcutta at all. Poet, scholar, writer and translator, Mitali’s nuanced intertextualities in this poem, and throughout the book held me enthralled.