A colonial city and its time(s)

Abstract

Kaliprasanna Sinha's Hutom Pyanchar Naksha (1861) is justly famous for its racy and vibrant depiction of life in nineteenth-century Calcutta. Ostensibly modelled on the Sketches by Boz of Charles Dickens, a marvellously realistic portrayal of the seamier side of everyday life in London, Hutom's sketches, however, do not describe the everyday life of the colonial capital of British India. Instead, it presents a gallery of effervescent portrayals of festivals—of people in masks, dressed up to enjoy themselves. For the colonised population of the city, a large part of everyday time has been surrendered to the drudgery of ‘the office’; only the time of the festival is its own. Even in citing its provenance, Hutom parodies Boz.

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