The Bengali Middle-Class of Kolkata from the Selected Short Stories by Narendra Nath Mitra/ নরেন্দ্রনাথ মিত্রের নির্বাচিত ছোটগল্পে কলকাতার বাঙালি মধ্যবিত্ত

Abstract

The root causes of the simultaneous crisis of life and livelihood of the Post-colonial Bengali middle-class society are actually hidden in the pages of successive historical documents at this time. It is the duty of a socially conscious writer to remove the dust layer of historical oblivion and keep a searching eye on them. Renowned storyteller Narendranath Mitra (1916-1975) devoted himself to this work. In fact, not only in his short stories but in his entire literary work, we can see the essence of realism of Bengali society of the 20^th century. Kolkata has a special place in the geography of these faces and masks. Therefore, these stories deserve special importance in reviewing the history of Bengali middle class in contemporary Kolkata. On the other hand, Narendranath is also a faithful speaker of the complex equation created in the economic and social sphere by the partition of the country and the resulting refugee problem.  Comprehensive reading of all these stories shows that sometimes, in terms of literary tendency, the author has travelled from the world of realism to the naturalist approach and sometimes back to the romantic cycle. Thuse in his composition, the life of the middle-class of Kolkata had caught thoroughly. Keeping these aspects in mind, we formulated this article. Apart from these, there are several historical informative lists and tables to witness the rise and fall of the contemporary economy and cultural assimilation which explain the situation of gradual increase in the refugee numbers in Bengal and its effects towards contemporary society. Thus, in the joint exercise of the testimony of the selected story on the one hand and the commentary of the historical facts on the other, we actually want to understand the association of the Bengali middle classes’ life and livelihood (special reference to Kolkata) from the reality of that particular period.