‘What have you got up your sleeve? Some new poems?’ Apu’s old college friend Pulu asks him in Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar. ‘A wonderful novel,’ Apu muses. ‘It’s about a boy, a village boy... poor, but sensitive. His father is a priest. The father dies, the boy goes to the city... Not to become a priest. He wants to study. His study, his education, his hardships... broaden his mind, sharpen his intellect...’ ‘Well?’ Pulu chips in. ‘But where is the novel? It’s an autobiography!’ Yes, true. In fact, it is the autobiography of the Bengalis, since 19th century. But not the unabridged version; obscure, even contrary parts have been left out of it. In search of the missing narratives, the author has set out on a fascinating trip, listening to the tales of grit blood love and dreams of the people he has encountered, and has pieced together the life story of a young deltaic land. Like Parimal Bhattacharya’s earlier books, Apur Desh, too, has been fashioned out of the forms of fiction, memoir, reportage, travelogue and more: it is a journey. Learn More

This book posits that the Bengali mind is torn between two basic paradigms: the forward-looking rational-secular Vidyasagar paradigm and the retrograde irrational-religious Vivekananda paradigm. The former has been defeated hands down by the latter. Learn More

Encrusted with British nostalgia and Bengali romanticism, Darjeeling is a melting pot of tribes and communities. Bhattacharya went to work there in early 1990s, when things were cooling down after a long and bloody agitation. Two decades later, the pot is on the boil again. Learn More