Day’s End Stories, through a series of essays, chronicles nightlife in the towns of this country, covering not just dance and drinks, but also night-time activities that fall outside the conventional. Once darkness descends, Amitava Kumar visits the forgotten cultural spaces of Patna and Bettiah; Sumana Roy journeys with women carriers, past Siliguri, to the Indo-Nepal border; Shiladitya Sarkar takes a midnight rickshaw through the firefly-lit lanes of Puducherry; and Vinod K. Jose recollects, with awe and longing, the late-evening film screenings in Mananthavady.
The writers uncover, at dusk, the topography of small-town India, sprinkled with taverns, temples, cafés and cinema halls. Equally, they delve into the nocturnal public cultures and subcultures of these spaces, their wonders and trappings intact.
They ask: How best can the nightlife of a small town be defined? How do social mores and beliefs impact late-evening wanderings? What pursuits are acceptable under the cover of darkness and what kind is deemed strange and subversive? How does the political climate colour the hours after sundown? Most importantly, has nightlife here come to define a rather parochial idea of modernity in India, that is attached to the metropolis?
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