KOLKATA: It was a winter evening in 1985. Reginald John had just returned home at Pilkhana in Howrah from office and was having tea with his wife when they heard a knock on their door.
“In those days, Howrah was cut off from Kolkata and Pilkahana was in the back of beyond (though merely 3km from Howrah station). People would turn in early and streets would be deserted by evening,” said John, the administrative officer of Seva Sangh Samiti. On opening the door, John was surprised to see a familiar face smiling at him. “It was my friend Dominique Lapierre. He pushed a book into my hands, ‘The City of Joy’, which he had based on characters we had met in the congested slums of Pilkahana,” he said.
