LANGUAGE IN INDIA

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Volume 26:4 April 2026
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Urban Humanities in Amit Chaudhuri's A Strange and Sublime Address and Afternoon Raag: A 'Spatial' Approach

Hari Sadhan Das and
Dr. Narendra Ranjan Malas

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to deal with the Marxist French philosopher Henri Lefebvre's concept of 'spatial triad' i.e. 'spatial practice' or the perceived space, 'representations of space' or the conceived space, and the 'representational spaces' or the lived space. To Lefebvre, social space is a social product and every society produces its own social space. For Lefebvre, perceived space is the physical space meant for our daily life; conceived space is the abstract rules, regulations, and ideologies determining all the spaces' range, role etc: and the lived space is the space directly lived by the users or the inhabitants. His “spatial triad” chiefly dealing with the urban space or the city space here works as the tool for examining different urban spaces as described in Amit Chaudhuri's first two novels i.e. A Strange and Sublime Address and Afternoon Raag. The stories of these novels without a strict beginning, middle and conclusion speak of the urban Bengali middle class culture. Chaudhuri's first novel represents the slow, chaotic, unorganized domestic life of Kolkata during 1970s through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy Sandeep, who comes to visit the house of his maternal uncle during his vacations, whereas the second novel captures some intimate and personal tension of the narrator for amid displacement and the desire to achieve foreign education. This paper examines how different spaces function as both material and symbolic dimension to explore cultural hybridity, identity, urban class struggle, and a desire for upward mobility with a complacent heart within the community. This societal and humanistic study of space contributes to the exploration and expansion in urban humanities revealing the fork routes of literature by highlighting the interplay between space, society and subjectivity.

Keywords: Urban middle class, “Spatial Triad”, Urban space.

Introduction

This paper entitled aims to examine how the Marxist French philosopher Henri Lefebvre's concept of 'spatial triad' i.e. 'spatial practice' or the perceived space, 'representations of space' or the conceived space, and the 'representational spaces' or the lived space can be used effectively to analyse different urban spaces as represented in Amit Chaudhuri’s first two novels i.e. A Strange and Sublime Address (1991) and Afternoon Raag (1993). In these select novels, Chaudhuri captures the urban life with its multifarious nuanced complexities. Chaudhuri's first novel represents the slow, chaotic, unorganized domestic life of Kolkata during 1970s through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy Sandeep, who comes to visit the house of his maternal uncle during his vacations. The second novel captures some intimate and personal tensions of the narrator for the displacement caused by his ambition of attaining foreign education. This paper explores the complexities and the problems of urban Bengali middle class society through a study of some incidents of everyday life spent in different spaces as represented by Chaudhuri. Henri Lefebvre's concept of 'spatial triad' i.e. 'spatial practice' or the perceived space, 'representations of space' or the conceived space, and the '''representational spaces' or the lived space has been used here as the framework to study how urban Bengali middle class society becomes a product of the British colonialism by imitating their culture and lifestyle, and spend their lives with a dream of upward mobility with a complacent spirit within, and with other complexities around. This paper also argues that space here not only serves as a background of the incidents but also speaks of the different hues of the characters' lifestyle and culture when studied with a Lefebvrian view.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Hari Sadhan Das
Ph.D. Research Scholar
Bankura University, West Bengal
hari.sadhan14@gmail.com
&
Dr. Narendra Ranjan Malas
Associate Professor
Department of English (UG and PG)
Ramananda College
Bishnupur, Bankura, West Bengal

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