Observant Owl: Hutom’s Vignettes of Nineteenth-century Calcutta

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Hutom Pyanchar Naksha (literally, 'Sketches by Hutom the Owl'), a set of satirical portraits in Bengali about ordinary life in the nineteenth century, is so popular that it has never been out of print since its publication in 1861-2. The author of the sketches, Kaliprasanna Sinha (1840-70), ran several literary journals, founded the Bidyotsahini Sabha (Association for the Cultivation of Knowledge), established a theatre house named Bidyotsahini Theatre to promote Bengali drama, published the Bengali translation of the Mahabharata, and donated generously to social causes and projects of social reform.

The Observant Owl, originally published in 2008, is the first ever English translation of Kaliprasanna's work. It presents a joyously irreverent portrait of the city he lived in. The writing is so vivid that one finds within these pages a sense of walking through a nineteenth-century city as fishwives call out their wares, housewives hurry to the river for baths, thieves pick pockets, and carriages creak through slush and rotting banana peels, carting passengers high on ganja.