"Calcutta If You Must Exile Me" is the best known single poem of the renowned Indian English poet and media personality

Pritish Nandy Pritish Nandy (15 January 1951 – 8 January 2025) was an Indian poet, painter, journalist, politician, media and television personality, animal activist and maker of films, television and streaming content. He was a parliamentarian in the Ra ...

. The poem is widely anthologised in major Indian English poetry collections and is regarded as a pioneering classic in modern Indian English writing. The poem is remarkable for its breathless tempo, vivid imagery and unsuppressed angst at societal decadence. The poem is addressed to the Indian city of

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

, although not in eulogical terms.

Origin and the Calcutta connection

The poem was written in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The poet himself reminiscences in a 2009 interview that the poem describes his feelings of a city he left 27 years ago. The poet was a resident of Calcutta (now Kolkata), and in the poet's own words, the poem is based on his direct real life experience of the city. The poem evokes the mood of a man born in Calcutta, bred in Calcutta and living in Calcutta.

Structure and criticism

The poem is notable for its fast tempo, impassioned conversational diction and sharp images depicting the "brutalities of city life. The most unusual feature of the poem is that it does not have a single punctuation mark - no comma, fullstop or hyphen. In fact, the entire poem is composed only of words, without any hyphenation or fancy spacing, almost as a rebellion against regimentation of any poetic structure. Such a style was a trendsetter during the period of its composition. In the poem, although Nandy portrays the ruthlessness prevalent in the city, he loves the city so much that he does not want to leave it.

Legacy

The unique style of the poem has inspired many modern Indian poets. The poem was harbinger of a new style of realistic writing on urban life in fast-paced tempo. Although the poem has spawned many imitations, none has equalled the power and majesty of the original.This poem brought a breath of fresh air, almost true in an Indian environment and starkly different from the mainstream Indian writings of the day.

Origin and the Calcutta connection

Structure and criticism

Legacy

See also

References

Further reading