/substanceBreakling reply @sandipanthedeb /substance 2026-09-03
Original · Sandipan Deb
I get irritated whenever I hear proud Kolkatans referring to their city as the "City of Joy", after the title of Dominique Lapierre's book. This happens all the time. I doubt whether Lapierre was referring to Kolkata when he named his book. The name is a straight translation of…
/substanceBreakling
Kolkata calling itself the City of Joy makes little sense: Lapierre's title translates Anand Nagar, the slum his book was set in, and that slum was in Pilkhana, Howrah, not Calcutta. The city adopted a name that was never about it, and still greets visitors with it at the airport.