Calcutta Nights

Calcutta Nights (Rooter Kolkata) is the real-life story and memoir of the enigmatic `Meghnad Gupta', pen name of famed Bengali fiction writer Hemendra Kumar Roy. Translated into English by Rajat Chaudhuri almost a century after the first publication of Raater Kolkata in 1923, Roy reveals to contemporary readers the darkest secrets of an earlier Calcutta. The first two decades of the last century, the backdrop for this book, were politically turbulent times. Those days, Calcutta, the erstwhile capital of British India, was teeming with people from different parts of the country besides Europeans and other foreigners. It was a city of sin, pleasure and suffering. Indians who arrived and settled here mingled with locals, some of them picking up dress, manners and the wanton lifestyles of the Bengali tabu', while others kept their identities intact. All this created a unique cosmopolitan setting, coloured with shades of debauchery, darkness and crime that this first-hand account brilliantly recounts. Written in an age very different from ours, certain views of the author could be jarring for the present times. However, these need to be tempered by the understanding of the sociopolitical contexts and the distance of a century separating us from Meghnad Gupta's Calcutta. Calcutta Nights is the Hootum Pyanchar Naksha (published in 1862 and penned by Kaliprasanna Sinha) of the early 20th century, a book that will help anyone understand the contrasts and colours of a unique Indian metropolis.

Famous Bengali author Hemendra Kumar Roy was also known as the emperor of adventure stories. His contribution to 20th century Bengali literature covering adventure, detective, and supernatural plots inspired movie hits like Bees Sacs! Baad (Twenty Years Later) and Jawkher Dhan (The Treasure and its Ghost). He pioneered the Bengali science-fiction and detective story traditions. Roy's characters Bimal-Kumar or Jayanta-Manik, the detective and assistant duo, are popular to this day. Born in Kolkata, Roy also published essays and was closely associated with a number of literary magazines. His love for adventure and the unknown left a distinct mark in his prose. Bilingual author and editor Rajat Chaudhuri has published novels, story collections and other works. His books include The Butterfly Effect (Niyogi Books), Hotel Calcutta (Niyogi Books), The Best Asian Speculative Fiction edited by him among others. Chaudhuri has won the Charles Wallace Creative Writing Fellowship, _ UK, the Hawthornden Castle Fellowship, Scotland, the Korean Arts Council-InKo Residency, South Korea, and the Sangam House residency. He has written for the Outlook magazine, American Book Review (University of Houston, USA), Asian Review of Books (Hong Kong), Anandabazar Patrika, Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi), The Telegraph and other publications.

A hundred years ago, a young man roamed the or streets of Calcutta the capital of British India, night after night, alone and almost unarmed. From the Chitpur bordellos to the Chinese gambling dens of Territi Bazaar, from the green rooms of Bengali theatres to the hideouts of ruthless hoodlums of Medthobazaar and beyond. Who was this Meghnad Gupta, who was scouring the wastelands of a metropolis while war raged the world over, and the country was ripe for change? Who was this Meghnad Gupta who quotes Tagore at the drop of a hat just as easily as he narrates scenes from the inner recesses of Calcuttis houses of ill repute where babus cavorted with nautch girls? Do we know him? Perhaps we do ... Calcutta Nights is the real life story and memoir of this enigmatic Meghnad Gupta who, as the reader will soon discover, is one of the pioneering creators of Bengali fiction—Hemendra Kumar Roy. Translated into English almost a century after the first publication of Rooter Kolkata in 1923, the popular author of detective novels, sci-fi and children's books reveals the darkest secrets of the second city of the erstwhile British Empire. Ranter Kolkata (Calcutta Nights), as someone has said, is the Hootum Pyanchar Naksha (7he Observant Owl: Hootum's Vignettes of Nineteenth-century Calcutta) of the early twentieth century.