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"This book is an attempt to understand a city through its roads. It explores the origins and development of three important roads of Calcutta (now renamed as Kolkata) from the pre-British colonial era to the postcolonial period. Spanning a period of four centuries, these three roads, Bagbazar Street in the north, Theatre Road in the centre, and Rashbehari Avenue in the south, register the contours of urbanization and the changes in the socio-cultural profile of the residents. The author locates this history within a broader theoretical framework with the help of which one can analyse the role of roads in urbanization, which are determined and influenced by the various political, economic, and socio-cultural impulses. The narrative traces the rise of Calcutta from a fledgling town to a giant metropolis through the history of these roads, and approaches the present era, when these roads have reached a cul-de-sac where their further expansion is restricted by territorial limits and environmental constraints. But the roads are still needed to meet the gargantuan appetite of urbanization, which is leading to the expansion of present-day Kolkata beyond its north-eastern borders. Here, the development of commercial-cum-residential complexes in the area known as the New Town, is Kolkatas first step in its ambition to graduate from a metropolis to a megalopolis. The book ends with a discussion on the changing character of roads in this New Town in the era of globalization."

"Maids have become an inseparable part of the daily lives of middle-class urban households in India. Despite the fact that increasing numbers of poor women are joining this profession, very little has been written about them, especially the part-time domestic workers, each of whom services a number of households at a time. They are not accorded their rightful status as workers either by the employers, their own families, the government or the traditional trade unions. Isolated in the privacy of employers homes, the problem of recognizing their work or organizing them is the same one as for women isolated in their own homes. Another important reason is that most such women are rendered voiceless by their social location: unlettered; staying in illegal settlements; migrants; working to survive; performing feminine work, both paid and unpaid, and both devalued. This book is, therefore, about making the unheard heard. It draws from personal narratives of part-time women domestic workers residing in two slum settlements of Kolkata, who speak about their work, lives, dreams, and despairs. By moving between the workplace and the homes of the workers, this book makes a departure from general accounts of labour and instead talks about labouring lives. The book also discusses public policy and politics which have historically neglected this section of workers as well as the recent efforts to give them visibility and voice."