Kolkata, My Endless City is a collection of binary photographs by renowned photojournalist Rajib De. This book is an ode to the city and an archive for the future metropolitan who would like adventures in the everyday mundane. The book contains textual trails written by journalist Arup Ghosh. The first thing that this book creates is an enchanting pull towards its cover. Four women draped in work and leisure walking towards a fast-developing city. The sense of nostalgia and romanticism is heightened because the entire book is in black and white with 1×3 aspect ratio photographs with panoramic shots of various shenanigans of an old and growing city. This style of photography is a conscious choice from De’s part after 2010, when he wanted to look at Kolkata from a very different lens.

The book covers places of seclusion and community. The art and style of the photographs need a detailed glance from the reader to fully fathom the depths of the city. It is not an anthropological survey or a comparison between the old and the new; it is simply a mirror of today’s Kolkata. The very first binary the readers see is the dingy narrow lanes of Kolkata where a person can barely fit and a picture following up where there are bike lanes and systemic roads. This is how the city has grown up, and the book captures exactly that essence. It could be a one-day song or a journey of a lifetime when one reads this document.

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Rajib De first came to the city from the picaresque town of Chandannagar when he was in 5th or 6th grade in school. He used to visit the city with his father because he had gotten selected into the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB). That was his first vision of a city with double-decker buses, trams, and a monumental bridge. “I had gotten arrested in the December of 1980’s for clicking pictures of Howrah Bridge,” De says, adding, “I have seen the city change, get urbanised and form a new part of its settlement in areas like Rajarhat and Newtown.”

As a city comes of age, it develops its own unique folklore. Kolkata has come a long way from being just three villages of Govindpore, Calcutta and Suttanuttee as recognised by the East India Company during the colonial raj. Calcutta was the capital of India then and the second most important city after London. Out of some 400 photographs, De has curated 100, which show the old and new, the dreamy and the ambitious, and the settled and anxious parts of Kolkata.

Arup Ghosh, the text writer, says, “This book is about knowns and unknowns, the centre of Kolkata and the peripheries. It is essentially a song of the road; there is no top shot or a photograph devoid of humane touch.” Ghosh also mentions how “the more the city grows, it becomes rootless in the process.”

There is a section in the book where ‘the two festivals of Kolkata’ are juxtaposed: Durga Puja and football. The pictures show children playing on concrete roads, with makeshift goal posts, and as if by choice idols of Durga adorn the galleries, which are nothing but broken pavements of some north Kolkata street. The binary photograph shows the children sitting on a large coil container. There are dark undertones of neo-capitalism and late modernist imagery, but just like in Kolkata, the kids are all smiles. Blissfully unaware of the lack of greenery under their feet, the children embrace the moment, reminding us of Carpe Diem. “The city reveres the Goddess as much as it adores football. They thrive side by side. In life’s roller-coaster ride, divine intervention often makes the difference between hope and despair,” says Ghosh.

Someone who has truly and madly loved Kolkata can never leave this city. As De points out, most of the photographers working in Kolkata “have been outsiders, but the people of Kolkata do not necessarily need to visit Paris for their photographer Mecca, Kolkata has enough moving films to spend a lifetime on.”

This archival record of once Alinagar begins with a foreword from Debanjan Chakrabarti, director of British Council, east and north-east India, which shows the upcoming rollercoaster. The book is a blend of ideals, architecture, politics and journeys from people of all paths of life. Kolkata has always been a “lyrical ode to that every-hyphenated and over-adjectival essence,” writes Chakrabarti. Once reaching from Kalighat to Chitpore, the city is ever-growing, invincible and welcoming to any newcomer baffled by the sweets, narrow northern lanes, or the sudden face of a house that belongs to when Job Charnock first visited the Hooghly riverside.

“The city of tomorrow is also the city of yesterdays. Like the flight of pigeons caught in a time warp. From the migration of royalty to those displaced by war, they have witnessed history being made and unmade here,” writes Arup Ghosh. The text holds value for the current state of the city. People have seen unaccounted resistance to unprecedented ventures against power. The history of Kolkata, be it in the 1840s, the 1970s, or the present, reflects the collective consciousness of the people residing in it. Kolkata has never been exclusive; it has been accepted like a mother, just as the pictures show images of open skies, a skyline shattered by neo-modern buildings, or a simple, brain-like spiral of an old feudal house.

The book ends with these lines: “Hope is born every minute in the city. It lives in the shade of trees. Waits for us at the traffic signal. Wakes us up in the morning. Switches the lights on in the evening. And lulls us to sleep late at night. Keeping vigil over each and every soul inhabiting this endless city.” It is fitting. Kolkata seldom disappoints strangers with her beauty, as shown in the book. It ends with a street urchin studying her heart out and a young mother with her child looking straight into the camera. The eyes will follow the reader as if it holds the spirit of a city that is growing old and essentially becoming rootless, as is the nature of things. This city has provided hope for people who have had almost nothing to their names. That is exactly what Rajib De’s lens catches time and again.

This book has one of the most unique author descriptions. Arup Ghosh writes what can only be called jabs and self-deprecating humour as his own introduction. Apart from that, none of the pieces he wrote in the books are captions but commentaries to form a story and become surreal at the same time.

Kolkata is truly the city you cannot live within, nor without.

Spotlight

Kolkata: My Endless City

By Rajib De and Arup Ghosh

Penprints, 2024

94 pages, Rs 3,000/-

Rajib De, former Photo-Editor of The Statesman, dedicated 15 years to the publication. Reflecting on his time there, he shares, “The Statesman has always been a prestigious institution to work for.” He fondly recalls his first day when Mr Ravindra Kumar, now Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director, personally welcomed him, a gesture that remains close to his heart. “It has been a remarkable journey since then,” he adds, recounting his coverage of diverse events, from elections to natural calamities across various states. One memorable moment includes covering Bihar politics, where the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee invited him along solely because he was from The Statesman—a publication Vajpayee admired greatly.

Rajib De’s debut photobook, Invincible City, was published last year, and he is set to release his next book, Hampi and New Town, next year, which juxtaposes the two unique settlements, yet “very similar”, as De tells us.