The eye covers distances in a second. It lusts for freedom. Looking out, I often wanted to be free - not of home, but of the city. The eye (if it's g… - Amit Chaudhuri

Calcutta, for me, was a particular idea of the modern city, and I found it in many forms, works, and genres. ... by 'modernity' I have in mind something that was never new. True modernity was born with the aura of inherited decay and life. ... if you look at paintings and photographs, and see old films of the city, you notice that these walls and buildings were never new – that Calcutta was born to look more or less as I saw it as a child. I'm not referring here to an air of timelessness; the patina that gave to Calcutta's alleys, doorways, and houses their continuity and disposition is very different from the eternity that defines mausoleums and monuments. It's this quality I'm trying to get at when I speak of modernity. ... modernity in the nineteenth century is indistinguishable from nature; perhaps it is nature – in some ways, the culvert, which has emerged from the rock, seems more of its place than the mountain itself.

‘a speck of dust hanging/in a vertical wall of light.’ ( Letter from the Hills )

‘As the sun came up, we/saw the leaves peer out, shivering.’ ( Letter from the Hills )