Crime and Urbanization - Calcutta in the Nineteenth Century

Author: Sumanta BanerjeePublisher: TulikaYear: 2006Language: EnglishPages: 150ISBN/UPC (if available): 8189487108 DescriptionA long and twisting alley with sharp bends, from where emerge curious figures who alternately attract and repel us-the crafty old black zamindar of Calcutta, Gobindaram Mitra, hatching his abysmal plots while praying in the city’s tallest temple that he built in Baghbazar; his namesake, the notorious housebreaker Gobindaram Chakravarty, who delights in digging holes into the houses of the opulent; the headless voluptuous body of the murdered prostitute Golap greeting us from the back lanes of Sonagaji; and the cunning counterfeiter Shyamacharan Mukhopadhyay winking at us with malicious glee from behind his makeshift mint from where he manufactures forged coins. Away form the raucous laughter and drunken brawls of the European sailors and soldiers in the Lalbazar taverns, we hear the shuffling sounds of creeping feet climbing up the putrescent walls of an old fort