Chowringhee

This is the Indian classic, published in English for the first time. 'Here, day and night were interchangeable. The immaculately dressed Chowringhee, radiant in her youth, had just stepped on to the floor at the nightclub.'Set in 1950s Calcutta, "Chowringhee" is a sprawling saga of the intimate lives of managers, employees and guests at one of Calcutta's largest hotels, the Shahjahan. Shankar, the newest recruit, recounts the stories of several people whose lives come together in the suites, restaurants, bars and back rooms of the hotel. As both observer and participant in the events, he reveals the unfulfilled desires, broken dreams, callous manipulations and unbidden tragedies of those who work and live there - the enigmatic manager Marco Polo, the debonair receptionist Sata Bose, and the tragic hostess Karabi Guha, among others. What unfolds is not just the story of individual lives but also the glittering chronicle of a lost metropolis.