By Meenakshi Malhotra  

From Calcutta to Kolkata:City of Dreams by Mitali Chakravarty traverses between worlds and words, as the poet’s eye sweeps across the changing cityscape, from times past recalling the erstwhile stories and narratives of Job Charnock to the postcolonial city, thrumming and throbbing with a mix of culture, history, and vibrancy that defines its beauty. The collection of poems, which comprises the poet’s third book of poetry,  captures the variegated scenarios and moods, the shifting temporalities and spatialities  of this bustling city. Neither a resident nor quite a migrant/visitor, the poet occupies a sort of liminal insider-outsider space and status vis-a vis the city.

Beyond iconic structures like the Howrah Bridge and the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata’s allure emanates from its rich cultural heritage and the warm buzz of  welcoming communities, which have absorbed and assimilated migrants and nomads. The historic lanes of North Kolkata, adorned with colonial-era structures, weave tales of a bygone era, contributing to the city’s distinctive charm.

Extravagant, hyperbolic and quirky at times (note the “Ooh Calcutta”, referencing an avant-garde and risque play) and occasionally somber (“Why Does Kolkata cry”),  the poet is at home in widely varying settings. As a visitor/traveller ( as she’s a ‘probashi’), she questions a permanent resident and fixture of the city, Queen Victoria, who occupied the pride of place as the empress of the erstwhile British empire. Housed for ever in the imposing gardens of the Victoria Memorial, a  monument enshrining the imperial colonial past of the city, the  erstwhile empress enquires  “Do the commoners all/ live their dreams without/the colonial regime?” (“Victoria at her Own Memorial). The poems capture the iridescent shades of the protean city, which had captivated the imagination of both the British as well as filmmakers and writers and artists. Satyajit Ray, a supremely talented Bengali filmmaker, focused on the shifts and challenges of changing urban existence and landscapes. There are notes of satiric humour as in the poem “Calcasians”, where the poet discusses the cultural practices and consumption habits of Bengalis: “Sugar gives them more to talk./Blood pressure, stomach upset/and disease — the next favourite/topic to converse after football,/cricket, politics, arts and theatre.” This is almost an insider joke among Bengalis who observe their brethren trading stories about the numerous maladies and ailments (often caused by over-eating)that they have to endure and suffer.

Mitali Chakravarty’s poems are not only about the city but also about its people, both from the past and the present and a “journey of self-discovery,” melding the  “spirit of the city” into her “being.” Sometimes, she is confused as in the eponymous poem “Confused”: “I am mixed up — cannot help/English and Bengali under my belt/…I grew up thinking I will find a way/ But now pidgin is all that I can say.” If the poet is bewildered by the mix of languages, the city of Calcutta/Kolkata also houses a mixed assortment of social and ethnic groups. The anthology, at one level, is about the multiple movements and migrations of people in and out of the city and the  cultural ramifications of such movements over several generations. These movements  result in hybridity and syncretism which is evident in the food, the aesthetics and the politics of the city. In many ways, it interrogates the shadow lines of borders and boundaries and the loss that would result with the imposition of a singular ‘national’ culture.

The poetic voice or persona may be seen as that of a flaneuse, moving through both time and space. In doing so, she discovers that both she and the city contain and inhabit multiple cultures. The truly multicultural and palimpsestic nature of the city is reflected upon in several poems: from Job to “jatras”, Queen Victoria to Monobina and Jahanara, are characters who jostle for space in the city and in the pages of Mitali Chakravarty’s poetic world. Apart from their poetic prowess, poems like “Monobina” stand out for the compassion and love embodied by the sundry characters who people the city of love. Thus the poet writes: “While women war/in Amazonia, and/Goddesses fight demons, Monobina/cycles four hours/through the broken /streets of Kolkata/to work, earn the/fee to pay for her/child’s education.” Towards the end, the poet queries: “What kind of a world/is it that raises a rampart,/a fortress for devis, but leaves only broken/ roads for Monobina/and Jahanara?” The socially unjust and skewed order of things is highlighted through the songs of  Monobina and Jahanara, “laced with maternal love, mercy and hope”… A tender glow shines through these lines which adds to the sense of outrage felt by the reader.

Chakravarty’s poetry powerfully blends nostalgia and critique. Like her earlier collection of poems, Cities, Nomads and Rocks (2024, Gibbon Moon, UK), From Calcutta to Kolkata peels away the various layers of the urban cityscape, from before the days of Tagore to its present state where people have forgotten  the polymath poet’s endeavours towards  social reform and justice. In glorifying his songs and his persona, they overlook many of the truly memorable initiatives undertaken by him. The set of poems on “Jorasanko”, which was the family home of Rabindranath Tagore, allude to his life and artistic endeavours. Somewhat ironically, the “mind that spun words/ to shape an ideal world, /a world laced with love, /kindness, compassion” is forgotten. Instead, “We forge/ hate…We celebrate/ the separation based/ on gods” and worse. We have failed to understand his message of love and compassion – “We tear, bleed, kill,/ insult while we mouth/this great soul’s songs.”

Another important motif in the poetry is the syncretic nature of this city which accommodates many communities without othering them. This is an important reminder that in these intolerant times, it is not mere architectural beauty which adds to the grandeur and splendour of the city, but its vision of a multicultural society and its expansive spirit. It is a spirit which had welcomed and housed many communities– Jews, Armenians, Anglo-Indians and Chinese, inter alia. Food in this city is the result of the interaction of many cultures, where chelow kebabs are served along with chowmein and fish steak. Even the iconic ‘rosogolla’ (literally meaning blobs/balls of syrup) is a hybrid: Bengali-Portuguese. Calcutta/Kolkata assimilates and amalgamates all cuisines:”This city of joy/gastronomically /digests all cuisines,/devouring with/devotion and delight!” (“Chelow Kebab”). Coffee house, banyan trees and boimela — Chakravarty’s poetry touches on the myriad hues of this iconic urbanscape and remarkably blends it into memorable verses.

In a personal vein, the poet explores the city through the lens of her own feelings and experiences: In the  evocative poem, “Why does Kolkata Cry?”, she writes: “I fell in love with Calcutta/ at sixteen — a city that/made no sense, where/trams spouted politics,/literature, theatre, football, /where buses jostled with/passengers weaving/friendships that swiftly/grow and end with rides, /where warmth dripped/from pedestrians/and pedlars alike,/where stray cows/meandered along/the esplanade and/my father relived/his college days!” The personal frames and brackets the sheer excess, the warmth and jouissance of the city. Yet many aspects of this metropolis are swallowed up by the leviathan of a hegemonic monoculture which spreads like contagion, leaving it bereft and forlorn. In personifying the city as she does, Mitali Chakravarty effectively invokes the daemon, the inner spirit of the city, and conducts an extensive dialogue with it in her poetry. Whether a probashi (a non-native) or nibasi (a resident/ inhabitant), a traveler or a migrant, Calcutta/Kolkata is not a city that you can forget or leave behind: Mitali’s poetry is a poignant testimony of its power over our individual and collective imaginations. 

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Professor Meenakshi Malhotra has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition to numerous published articles on gender and/in literature and feminist theory. She has co-edited and contributed to The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle, (2023, Scopus Index). Some of her publications include articles on lifewriting as an archive for GWSS, Women and Gender Studies in India: Crossings (Routledge, 2019), on “The Engendering of Hurt” in The State of Hurt, (Sage, 2016), on Kali in Unveiling Desire, (Rutgers University Press, 2018) and “Ecofeminism and its Discontents” (Primus, 2018). She has recently taught a course as a visiting fellow in Grinnell College, Iowa. She also reviews and writes for online and hardcopy journals.