About

Kolkata 1955: an extended family of six is crammed into a three-room house and financially depends on bank clerk Subrata who is married to a charming and intelligent woman, Arati - the calm centre of family life. One night Subrata offhandedly mentions an acquaintance of his whose wife has a job and Arati becomes passionate about paid work outside the home. She is soon employed as a knitting machine salesperson and her burgeoning confidence and financial successes are matched by the growing discomfort of her husband and outright dismay of her father-in-law. Filled with the minutiae of urban Indian life, yet an internationally recognisable story, The Big City focuses on a Bengali family dealing with social change and the developing role of women within middle-class households.