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sanjanabht's review
2.0
A very light read. Even though I found it in the travelogue section and was seized by the urge to read it because I was missing home, it is more of a personal story. I liked snippets of conversations with Sunil Gangopadhyay and Asim Dasgupta. But apart from that a pretty ordinary account of Calcutta full of cliches that the author desperately tries to mask by adding run-ins with pimps, fake lesbians and govt. registered escort services.
look_whos_reading's review
2.0
Picked this up hoping to trace some connection to the city as a fellow Probashi. Sadly 100 pages into it, the narrative still only talks of aimless walks on Park street, the masked and other times open flaunting of prostitute's dens, the blatant newspaper classifieds for escort services and even more sadly does not seem to be leading into any kind of concrete plot. I refuse to believe that a travelogue of the City of Joy can be so one dimensional and soulless. What about literature? Culture? Political motivation? Arts and cinema? No matter how hard I try not to, it makes me want to judge the writer's taste of how he would spend his days in a city that (even though I have no memory of) has so much to offer. Remains to be seen what the writer has to say in the other 2/3s of this book. So far he has managed to put me off royally.
I've given it another 50 odd pages. Well, I tried . I really did.
I've given it another 50 odd pages. Well, I tried . I really did.
saileedhole's review
4.0
Picked this up to see what I have gotten myself into. The author does try to cover all dimensions of Kolkata from it's beginning as kalikata and sutanati to history of rosogolla to mohun bagan to the largest redlight area of sonargachi. As is often repeated in the book-"you will hate this city if you stay for a day or two. But live here for a month and you will fall in love with it.", it has made me look forward to my time in this city of joy.
parvathy's review
3.0
Calcutta and is many tiny places are covered beautifully.
This is not a book that talks anything negative about the city, it is simply written to fall in love with a new city and believe me it aids perfectly in doing so.
This is not a book that talks anything negative about the city, it is simply written to fall in love with a new city and believe me it aids perfectly in doing so.
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