SOME YEARS AGO, A JOURNALIST EXPERIENCED SOMETHING OF AN EPIPHANIC MOMENT. BISHWANATH GHOSH HAD ALIGHTED ...FROM HIS TRAIN AT ITARSI STATION IN MADHYA PRADESH - TO STRETCH HIS LEGS AND GRAB A CUP OF TEA - BEFORE HE RESUMED HIS JOURNEY WHICH HAD BEGUN AT KANPUR AND WOULD END IN MADRAS. IT OCCURRED TO HIM, THEN, THAT MILLIONS OF PASSENGERS HAD KILLED PROBABLY BILLIONS OF HOURS AT RAILWAY JUNCTIONS SUCH AS ITARSI IN ORDER TO TAKE THE CONNECTING TRAIN TO THEIR DESTINATIONS. BUT NO ONE BOTHERED TO WONDER ABOUT WHAT LAY BEYOND THE PLATFORM. AND SO, GHOSH RESOLUTELY ROAMED THE TOWNS BEYOND THE STATION YARD -- TOWNS SUCH AS MUGHAL SARAI, JHANSI, ITARSI, GUNTAKAL, JOLARPETTAI, ARAKKONAM AND SHORANUR -- TO DISCOVER THE LIVES OF PEOPLE WHO MAY HAVE GROWN INURED TO THE CONSTANT WHISTLE OF PASSING TRAINS. IN CHAI, CHAI: TRAVELS IN PLACES WHERE YOU STOP BUT NEVER GET OFF BISHWANATH GHOSH COMBINES DESCRIPTIVE SKILLS WITH PERSONAL HISTORY AND HUMOUR TO BRILLIANTLY ILLUMINATE THESE OTHERWISE OBSCURE SMALL TOWNS - TOWNS THAT DENOTE THE REAL INDIA.....काही वर्षांपूर्वी एका पत्रकाराने काही वेगळेच क्षण अनुभवले होते.कानपूर ते मद्रास प्रवासादरम्यान इटारसी स्थानकावर विश्वनाथ घोष पाय मोकळे करायला आणि एक कप चहा प्यायला उतरले. तेव्हा त्यांच्या लक्षात आले की, लाखो प्रवासी त्यांच्या मुक्कामाकडे जाणारी पुढची गाडी येण्यापूर्वी इटारसीसारख्या जंक्शनवर कदाचित करोडो तासांचा वेळ घालवत असतील. पण स्थानकापलीकडचे शहर कसे आहे हे शोधण्याची कधी कोणी तसदी घेत नाही. लेखक म्हणतो, ``भारतातील रेल्वे स्थानके ही शहरांना आणि गावांना जोडणा-या प्रदेशातील उत्कंठावर्धक अशी स्वतंत्र राज्ये आहेत. ती स्थानिक जीवनाच्या स्वादापासून पूर्णपणे भिन्न असतात. जणू दिल्लीतील एकाच अधिकाऱ्याच्या अखत्यारीतील तो एक वेगळाच प्रदेश असतो, रेल्वेच्या शिट्ट्यांच्या सहवासात लहानाचे मोठे झालेले लोक आणि त्यांचे जीवन याबद्दल जाणून घेण्यासाठी घोष मुद्दाम ह्या शहरांमध्ये फिरले. इटारसी, मुघलसराई, अरक्कोनम, जोलारपेटाई, झाशी, शोरानूर आणि गुंटाकल अशा विविध उत्कंठावर्धक नावांच्या शहरांमधून त्यांनी केलेला हा प्रवास....!``

Chai, Chai (Marathi Edition)

Travel

Ghosh, Bishwanath

Asia

MEHTA PUBLISHING HOUSE

Some years ago, a book was published that would change the way one looks at railway junctions forever. Bishwanath Ghosh had got down at Itarsi junction to grab a cup of chai while travelling from Kanpur to Chennai. Sipping on the tea, as he heard the recorded voice announcing the arrivals and delays of the many trains that pass through the station, it struck him that while Itarsi junction connects the length and breadth of India on the rail map, almost nothing is known about Itarsi, the town. Thus began Ghosh's quest to tell the story of the towns behind some of the country's biggest junctions: Itarsi, Mughal Sarai, Jhansi, Shoranur, Arakkonam and Jolarpettai-places that are always a stopover and never a destination; familiar and yet unknown. Chai, Chai, a definitive work on small-town India, went on to become an instant success and continues to draw readers with its abundant wit and charm.

Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop but Never Get Off

Literature & Fiction

World Literature

Tranquebar

'While in other big cities tradition stays mothballed in trunks, taken out only during festivals and weddings, tradition here is worn round the year.' This is just one of the author's many keen observations of Chennai. With mordant wit, this biography of a city spares neither half of its splitpersonality: from moody, magical Madras to burstingattheseams, techsavvy Chennai. And, a minute into the book, the reader knows they are inseparable-and Bishwanath Ghosh refuses to take sides. And yet, he tells us, while Chennai is usually known as conservative and orthodox, almost every modern institution in India-from the army to the judiciary, from medicine to engineering-traces its roots to Madras's Fort St George, which was built when Delhi had only just become the capital of the Mughal Empire, and Calcutta and Bombay weren't even born. Today, the city once again figures prominently on the global map as 'India's Detroit', a manufacturing giant, and a hub of medical tourism. There have been sweeping changes since preIndependent India, but even as Chennai embraces change, its people hold its ageold customs and traditions close to their heart. 'This is what makes Chennai unique,' says Ghosh, 'the marriage of tradition and technology'. Bishwanath Ghosh wears a reporter's cap and explores the city he has made his home, delving into its past, roaming its historic sites and neighbourhoods, and meeting a wide variety of people-from a top vocalist to a top sexologist, from a yoga teacher to a hip transsexual, from a yesteryear film star to his own eightyfiveyearold neighbour, from the ghosts of Clive, Wellesley, Hastings and Yale to those of Periyar and Mgr, two people who redefined the political skyline of Tamil Nadu. What emerges is an evocative portrait of this unique city, drawn without reservation-sometimes with humour, sometimes with irony-but always with love.

Tamarind City: Where Modern India Began

'Calcutta was no longer an old piece of furniture in the attic. It was an antique whose value I had realised.' With these words Bishwanath Ghosh embarks on an exploration of a city that, as a probashi nonresident Bengali, he has only recently fallen in love with. He probes the lives of its inhabitants some famous and others faceless and at the same time strolls along the Hooghly, wanders in and out of Park Street, College Street, Kalighat, Kumartuli, Sonagachhi, even ending up in a dance bar in Salt Lake.With his adventurous spirit and undeniable wit intact, Bishwanath Ghosh pieces together his own unique idea of a unique city.

Longing Belonging: An Outsider at Home in Calcutta

Gazing at Neighbours: Travels along the Line That Partitioned India

While cremating his mother at the famed Manikarnika Ghat, Bishwanath Ghosh pretended he was a writer collecting material for a future book rather than a grieving son—his way of dealing with the last rites. A few years later, he returns to Banaras to write that book. Plunging into its timeless aura, he roams its ghats and galis, sails through the cool breeze of the Ganga, walks through the heat of funeral pyres. One moment he is observing a sadhu show off his penile strength, in the next he is on a boat with a young woman who has been prophesied to marry seven times; one moment he is in conversation with the celebrated writer Kashinath Singh, who is an atheist, and in the next he is having tea with a globe- trotting priest and a god-fearing doctor ... Ghosh finds a story in every bend as he engages with quintessential Banarasis—their paan-stuffed mouths spouting expletives and wisdom with equal flair—and discovers why they are among the happiest people on earth. Then one evening at Manikarnika, as he emerges from a temple, wearing ash from the cremation ground on his forehead, he finds a bit of Banaras in himself. Aimless in Banaras is not only a sensuous portrait of India’s holiest city but also a meditation on life—and death.

Aimless in Banaras: Wanderings in India's Holiest City

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