Whether Keron Bhattacharya’s Goodbye Calcutta is a novel or a longish piece of fictional investigative journalism may be debatable. But after racing through its 453 pages I am left in no doubt that it is a highly interesting addition to the long list of literary creations focused on the Indian diaspora across the world. Familiar as he is with Calcutta as well as London, Keron weaves together with consummate skill the story of the varied and cross-cultural relationships characterising social life in these two metropolises which, in spite of geographical distances and a civilisational hiatus, have lots in common in terms of shared intellectual pursuits.
Goodbye Calcutta may ring a bell in the minds of old timers familiar with the social life of the Indian community in London and its outskirts
Framed against the backdrop of the 1960s when Indians going to the UK (and Britons coming to India) were not fettered by entry permits or visas, Keron’s absorbing account of the life and activities of Indians—particularly Bengalis—in Britain has all the ingredients of high drama—love, marriage, divorce, revenge, et al. Goodbye Calcutta may ring a bell in the minds of oldtimers familiar with the social life of the Indian community in London and its outskirts.
The story is focused on the double tragedy of its main character Joya Banerji (nee Thadani), She is devastated on discovering that Subho, the man she married for love, was once making love to her mother. Her father’s intervention saves the marriage for the time being; but in the meantime she unwittingly falls prey to the wily advances of Vishy, a starry eyed ‘’revolutionary’’ committed to liquidating neo-imperialists masquerading as multinational corporations. Much of what she does later flows from her resolve to take revenge against her mother and the ‘’revolutionary’’ she has fallen in love with, albeit for different reasons.
Set in Calcutta and London of the 1960s and stretching up to the late1980s, the climax of Bhattacharya’s story is a massive explosion in an MNC’s chemical plant in Calcutta (soon after the Bhopal gas disaster of December 1984, said to be the worst industrial accident in history), which among others kills Joya’s son, a student at a school nearby. She is stunned on learning that the blast was engineered by none other than the ‘’revolutionary’’ whose persona overwhelmed her. Joya chases her son’s killer all the way from London to Calcutta, and traces him to his hideout on Calcutta’s outskirts. The chance pulling of a trigger kills Vishy. Joya, on a mission of revenge, plants kiss after kiss on the dying man. But later that night she ends her own life with an overdose of barbiturates.
Keron’s familiarity with the manipulations of unscrupulous predators in sharemarkets comes to light in the course of Joya Banerji’s investigation of the underhand dealings of Uma Shankar Datta, the London-based MNC top executive at whose chemical plant in Calcutta the explosion occurred. The details of her labours give the uninitiated a peek at the skulduggery that goes on in sharemarkets across the world.
Some readers may find a bit jarring Keron’s fanciful depiction of two of the key dramatis personae—mother and daughter—as icons in the journalistic fraternity, admired as much as feared by all those who mattered in the contemporary world. I wonder if any Indian journalist has ever reached such dizzy heights as Keron’s characters apparently did.
Keron’s journalists are also extraordinary people inasmuch as the younger one is equally at home with the intricacies of international diplomacy as well as the nitty-gritty of fudging accounts and manipulating the stock market. And cost accountancy happens to be the occupation of several characters, revealing the author’s expertise in the profession.
I enjoyed reading Keron’s debut novel because it is refreshingly different from the usual “lovers running-around-the-tree” kind of fictional literature. The book has plenty of stuff for an interesting film script. —Reviewed by Nitish Chakravarty
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