"Calcutta takes its name from [Kalikata], which in turn was named after the black Hindu goddess Kali. The dreadful Kali is the wife of Shiva, and is portrayed as a bloodthirsty, axe-wielding psychopath, dripping in blood, with the heads of her victims hanging on string around her neck. In normal circumstances the likes of Kali would be taken in for police questioning. But in Calcutta she is revered as the city's patron goddess. The similarly evil appearance of Calcutta must be more than mere coincidence. The forces of Hindu destiny at work again?"
Peter Holt, from In Clive's Footsteps, reprinted in Simon Winchester's Calcutta.
Note : This will be a general scattershot discussion about my thoughts on the book and the movie, and not a cohesive review. When movies are based on books I am interested in reading but haven't yet read, I generally wait to read the book until I have seen the movie, but when a movie is made based on a book I have already read, I try to abstain from rereading the book until I have seen the movie. The reason is simple: I am one of those people who can be reduced to near-incoherent rage when a movie severely alters the perfectly good story line of a beloved book, changes the ending beyond recognition or adds unnecessarily to the story ( The Hobbit , anyone?) without any apparent reason. I don't mind omissions of unnecessary parts so much (I did not, for example, become enraged to find Tom Bombadil missing from The Lord of the Rings ), because one expects that - movies based on books would be TV-series long if they tried to include everything, so the material must be pared down ...
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