Calcutta Mosaic: Essays and Interviews on the Minority Communities of CalcuttaHimadri Banerjee, Nilanjana Gupta, Sipra Mukherjee A city is more than its buildings and streets. A city is the people who live, work, and play in it and make it their own. This book brings together original essays and interviews which trace the history of the peoples in the city of Calcutta. Those who came and stayed; why they did so; and how they contributed in building the city. Once celebrated as the second city of the British Empire after London and more recently derided as the dying city, Calcutta is simultaneously associated with intellectual creativity, processions and palaces and a unique way of claiming the outsider as its own. This collection brings together the stories of the Armenians, Chinese, Sikhs, ‘South Indians’, Bohra Muslims and other communities who have come and created this wondrous mosaic, the city of Calcutta. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Chapter 1 Mapping the Spaces of Minorities Calcutta through the Last Century by Keya Dasgupta | 23 |
Chapter 2 The Armenians of Calcutta by Susmita Bhattacharya | 71 |
Chapter 3 The Jews of Calcutta by Sipra Mukherjee | 87 |
Chapter 4 The Sindhis of Calcutta by Sajni Kripalani Mukherji | 97 |
Chapter 5 The City of Colleges The BengaliMuslim in Colonial Calcutta by Sipra Mrkherjee | 111 |
Chapter 6 The Chinese Community of Calcutta An Interview with Paul Chung by Sipra Mukherjee and Sarvani Gooptu | 131 |
Chapter 7 The AngloIndians of Calcutta An Interview with Rudolph Rodrigues by Nandini Bhattacharya | 143 |
Chapter 8 The Biharis of Calcutta An Interview with Sachchidand and Indu Rai by Sipra Mukherjee | 153 |
Chapter 9 Agraharis of Calcutta A Minority Group within the Larger Sikh Community by Himadri Banerjee | 164 |
Chapter 10 A Journey into my Neighbourhood The Bohra Community of Calcutta by Sarvani Gooptu | 197 |
Chapter 11 South Indians in Calcutta Experiences in Cultural Processes by Nandini Bhattacharya | 211 |
Chapter 12 NonBengali Icons of Malevolence Middle Class Representation of an Other in Interwar Culcatta by Sudeshna Banerjee | 231 |
Chapter 13 Selfing the City Single Women Outsiders in Calcutta Gender and the Processes of Everyday Urban Life by Ipshita Chanda | 253 |