期刊名称：Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities
电子版ISSN：0975-2935
出版年度：2019
卷号：11
期号：2
页码：1-14
DOI：10.21659/rupkatha.v11n2.12
出版社：Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities
摘要：Kolkata has had a long and troubled relationship with food and hunger, which has shaped Bengalifood-practices in the city. From famine in the 1940’s to food-movement of the 1960’s, as foodproduction dwindled, Kolkata saw a gradual decline of its economic fortune. In the 1970’s and80’s, it was common to portray Kolkata as a failed postcolonial metropolis filled with starvingmillions. With this troubled history in the backdrop, this paper focuses on culinary experiences inKolkata as reflected in Amit Chaudhuri’s novella A Strange and Sublime Address. The novella, inits bid to highlight the trivial and the mundane in Bengali life in Kolkata in the early 1990’s,portrays culinary experiences as epiphanic expressions of an introverted, inner existence.Chaudhuri describes food-practices in an attempt to preserve an esoteric food-system – a systemthat connects inner life with cooking, serving and eating of food. Bengali food-practices, I argue,appear in this novella as “edible chronotopes” (Krishenblatt-Gimblett) revealing a culture’sfascination with time and food. Through Bengali food practices the novella’s protagonist Sandeepmourns a deep loss he feels about his lack of connection to Kolkata and learns to cultivate a senseof reticence, which allows him to absorb the joy of merging with the life in the city in its banaland quotidian form. I further connect Chaudhuri’s search for the inner self in culinary practiceswith his journey to what he terms “bucolic” Kolkata – a journey Ashish Nandy had termed “anambiguous journey to the city”.
关键词：city; food and hunger; culinary experience; post-colonialism; Amit Chaudhuri
