Weathering Colonial Calcutta examined the colonial history of Calcutta through the lens of seasons and the weather. It explored how heat, humidity, monsoon rains, tropical storms, and cold winters shaped the changing matrix within which Bengali and British relations and experiences of Calcutta existed. It reveals how the weather and seasons not just defined scientific and social viewpoints, modes of cultural activity, the clothes people wore, the foods they ate, the architecture and layouts of urban and domestic spaces, but were also defined by how and what people felt when they sweat in the heat and humidity, were drenched in the rain, or caught in a storm. Through vivid accounts drawn from a variety of archival sources, including letters, domestic guidebooks, diaries, newspapers, artworks, theatre and satire, the project revealed the sensory and affective lives of different social groups — from British officials to Bengali housewives, from civil servants to domestic servants — and the ways their experiences of Calcutta’s seasons and weather produced and reflected deeper social and cultural ideas and power structures.
The project makes two key analytical interventions. First, it historicises and advances the sociological and anthropological concept of “weathering”. Scholars of climate change and extreme weather events use “weathering” to underscore lived experiences and counter the linear and inhuman narratives of climate change confined within scientific graphs and mathematical models. They argue that living with the effects of climate change is inseparable from the social, cultural and political climates that human bodies exist within. This project extends “weathering” to examine how experiences of seasons and weather in colonial Calcutta were profoundly personal, yet shaped by societies, political dynamics and cultural norms.
Second, the book develops methodological approaches to study weather as both a physical and natural entity, and a social phenomenon in historical contexts. It does more than simply following the appearance of weather in texts, but foregrounds instead the sensory and affective ways in which people experienced and interpreted the weather. This methodology addresses a key challenge in climate history, especially in the context of South Asia: how to fully understand the internal workings of peoples’ everyday lives, and how varied experiences of seasons and weather were integrated into broader discussions of colonialism, nationalisms, domesticity, class and social identities, the literary arena, the place of women and servants in the household, and urban planning. The project reveals how seemingly mundane yet critical aspects of weathering — from knowledge of seasons, clothing, nutrition, and the design, layout and use of public and domestic spaces — were, in often delicate ways, embedded in the creation and maintenance of racial, class and social thinking and practices.
The project's public website is www.weatheringcultures.com.
