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. @SharanyaHK wanted me to write about the public library of my childhood, but there was one problem: I can only have mixed feelings about it. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kalyani-public-library-community-spaces_in_5f5316c9c5b6578026ce45b1">https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kal...
The small town I grew up in was a & #39;planned township& #39;, celebrated as a story of West Bengal& #39;s success after the devastation of Partition. In the story of the planned town we grew up hearing and never questioning, the land was simply & #39;acquired& #39;. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kalyani-public-library-community-spaces_in_5f5316c9c5b6578026ce45b1">https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kal...
Sometimes one heard of the soldier& #39;s camp, named after Roosevelt. There& #39;s an old well with a plaque that commemorates King George V - I cycled up to it once, it was not particularly impressive. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kalyani-public-library-community-spaces_in_5f5316c9c5b6578026ce45b1">https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kal...
Names like Chandmari, Charsarati, Ghoshpara existed in my lexicon only when referring to the fringes of the town, never quite about the 45 evicted villages (with little or no compensation) or the Chandmari Refugee Camp. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kalyani-public-library-community-spaces_in_5f5316c9c5b6578026ce45b1">https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kal...
The Partition narrative of West Bengal is so overdetermined by narratives of Calcutta that townships like ours, with their brand of planned segregation, is seldom recognized, let alone addressed. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kalyani-public-library-community-spaces_in_5f5316c9c5b6578026ce45b1">https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kal...
Thinking about the library, so carefully located within the planned town - a part of the urban amenities that were supposed to lure genteel folks away from Calcutta - made me realize that I can& #39;t tell the library& #39;s story without the story of the town. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kalyani-public-library-community-spaces_in_5f5316c9c5b6578026ce45b1">https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kal...
The deep history of the land is one marked by dispossession and migration - the famine, the War and the American soldiers, the Partition - and the new town, for all its sanitized urban legends, is a part of that story. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kalyani-public-library-community-spaces_in_5f5316c9c5b6578026ce45b1">https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kal...
The land is also marked by another history of co-existence - evident every year at Dol Purnima, when the devotees of Aulchand flock the Sati Ma& #39;r Mela. With the rising tensions in the area, esp. with the NRC, I fear for its co-option and erasure. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kalyani-public-library-community-spaces_in_5f5316c9c5b6578026ce45b1">https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kal...
Also, very grateful to @SharanyaHK for being a wonderful editor and to her colleague Akshita for her all her work. Thank you!
