After introducing a series of books on cities, I am back to introducing yet another well-researched book on India’s very important (coastal) city about which we in the north or Central India do not talk much about. It is Calcutta, originally a coastal village which had facilitated the entry of the British into India so many years ago. Little wonder we find some really beautifully designed, British-style big buildings still there.

The author, Ranbir Ray Choudhury, a former journalist with The Hindu and The Statesman, is a well-known authority on Calcutta’s past and present. Choudhury has written five books related to different aspects of this quaint city which he is clearly in love with. His book talks mainly about Calcutta’s early growth. Well, have you heard of Sutanati? Some of you may have but since Calcutta has been pushed to history’s dustbin by its new Bengali name Kolkata, I am sure Sutanati is a little too difficult to recall. It was like any ordinary Bengal village of those days until Job Charnock set foot on this small hamlet ( 24th August 1690). Yet, by the middle of 19th century, it was being described as the second city of the British Empire.

Ray Choudhury dug out documents from archives to know how a set of three villages of Sutanati, Kalikata and Gobindapur came to be known as Calcutta, later renamed as Kolkata. Reverend Long writes that Charnock had extensive physical surveys done for Sutananti, Gobindapur, Town Calcutta and Bazar Calcutta before coming up with habitation ideas.

This book uses beautiful black and white pictures of architect’s plans, of old buildings and of the Governor Generals, to help a reader relate instantly to what the author is describing.

The detailed story running into some 550 pages deals with the early evolution in the section ‘Around the old Fort’ . The book tells us, even in those days, the main effort on the part of authorities was directed at cleaning up the place and setting up essential facilities such as hospital, a jail, a mayor’s court, strengthening the banks of river, etc. All these issues are still talked about and planned in modern Indian cities. So hats off to the British who showed the way to urban dwellers and managers well over three centuries ago!

In the second section, ‘The town spreads itself’, details of the town’s planned but gradual growth which saw Calcutta expanding southward till the end of 18th century, is interestingly explained. While reading such books on developing cities, I am always amazed at the foresight and concern of the rulers and city managers (a word which had not been coined then, though) about problems such as unplanned growth, bad or absent drainage systems and river bank strengthening etc. Then in the third section, the author deals with the marked advent of a town-planning era set in motion under Lord Wellesley and the story grows to the point where the famous Lottery Committee was formed in 1817. Funds raised by annual public lotteries were set aside for city development work. There is a mention of Rs 60,000 garnered through lottery, in the book. The author gives credit to Wellesley for sowing the seed of modern Calcutta. The work began by Wellesley was continued by his successors Lord Minto (1807-1813) and Lord Hastings (1813-1823).

The book discusses the mighty Hoogly river in great detail, the densely forested areas south of Calcutta and paddy fields having covered esplanade of the new fort in 1770. The river chapter is interesting because today we see river rejuvenation projects as a new fashion and massive amount of expenses done to restore rivers for the posterity. I quote here an interesting mention about the river: The river was the lifeline of the English in the early days providing them with among other things, the comforting thought that if there was ever a siege of the settlement they could always use the waterway to get away or receive help. Yet, it was the river that was proving to be difficult for the English because of its waywardness, especially with regard to the eastern bank which was being eroded by the strong current. In 1766, the Bengal Council was under pressure to protect the new Fort William site because of ‘encroachment of the River’, a threat which was averted by spending around six lakhs Arcot rupees on a scheme to protect the fortifications. In the chapter ‘Birth of a Canal’ there are absorbing details of how the officials used to think of their city and the convenience of the people, among other things. It was not that only Britishers were the citizens of Calcutta but also many Indians. I am quoting a para to help readers catch a glimpse of administration in those days: The magistrate wrote that ‘on any slight excess of rain’ Chitpur Road would be under two to three feet water. The third objective was the forming of a ‘direct and easy communication’ with the salt water lake and that part of town. The magistrate wrote with satisfaction, ‘I purposely went down that road (Chitpore Road) at 5 o’ clock on the very evening of the storm to observe the effect of the several water courses I had recently formed, and I had the gratification to observe there was not a drop of water lying on any part of the road of Chitpore....’.

The entire book is full of such instances, thinking processes of the Governor Generals, financing patterns in vogue for the city development exercises, cleaning up the town and so on. While I don’t say today’s planning practices are all junk but with the chaos in Indian cities that is witnessed (and suffered) by one and all, not much is required to be said, actually. Of course, a lot has changed in the West Bengal capital in the last more than one century, yet the British imprint is adequately visible all over, be it cricket or architecture.