Kolkata in Space, Time, and Imagination Vol 1

The first section of this volume indicates how the city has negotiated space from its formative years right up to the crucial juncture it seems to have reached recently as a result of the drastic shift towards mega-urbanity. The second section provides glimpse into the city in time, through the two global wars in the twentieth century, the Naxalite movement, the rule of the Left Front and beyond. The book seeks to understand the city not only in space and time, but also in imagination. While recognizing that the colonial rulers did play a vital role in the making of the city, the book is primarily about the active native participation in the process of Kolkata’s urban transformation. It highlights the ordinary and the everyday, with special attention paid to the underclasses of the city. It uses a polyscopic perspective and presents the city as a fascinating heterotopia based on a coexistence of the haves and the have-nots, of the old and the new, of formality and informality.