For the world outside of Kolkata, the city is colourful, a mine of clichés and memorable for the annual jamboree called the Durga Pujo.

For author-journalist Indrajit Hazra, however, Kolkata is rather delusional. A city which “believes in its utterly special position in the country it is part of”… “a city that even as it falls apart, exists, like Magritte’s floating castle in the air.”
Grand Delusions, Hazra’s first non-fiction book, does not promise to be an objective, empirical account of a city he left 16 years ago, but ends up being exactly that. “To be honest, when the publishers approached me to write a biography of Kolkata (Grand Delusions is part of a series of short biographies of Indian cities), it seemed like a scary prospect. It would be too close to the bone, I thought. I was more comfortable writing about Delhi, where I’ve been living since 1998,” he says.