Batatyachi Chaal, published in 1958, gathers P. L. Deshpande's humorous sketches about the residents of a fictional chawl in old Mumbai, the multi-storey tenements where families shared corridors, taps and toilets. The chawl is home to clerks, teachers, pensioners, busybodies and would-be intellectuals, and nothing happens privately for long.
Much of the comedy comes from collective enterprise: residents form committees, hold meetings, organise festivals and cultural programmes, and argue endlessly over procedure and pride. Pu La, as the author is affectionately known, mocks pretension, bureaucratic jargon and the Marathi middle class's love of speeches, yet he never sneers. His characters are absurd but likeable, and their quarrels hide real neighbourliness.
The book is part of a body of work that made Deshpande the most beloved humorist in Marathi, and its pieces have often been performed on stage as readings. For readers today it also preserves a vanished way of urban life, with its cramped intimacy and shared rituals, before chawls gave way to housing societies and towers.
Book details
| Author | P. L. Deshpande |
|---|---|
| First published | 1958 |
| Original language | Marathi |
| Genre | Humour |
| Type | Fiction |
| Setting | A chawl in Girgaon, Mumbai, 1950s |
Themes
- Community life
- Middle-class pretension
- Satire of committees
- Neighbourliness
- Urban nostalgia
Who should read it
Marathi readers looking for warm, laugh-aloud satire and a picture of old Mumbai chawl life.