In this conversation with JGU Media, Professor (Dr.) Arup K. Chatterjee—Professor of English at O.P. Jindal Global University—offers unique insights into his landmark study, The Purveyors of Destiny: A Cultural Biography of the Indian Railways (2017), published by Bloosmbury. Across this concise exchange, Chatterjee emphasizes the railway as a living institution, one whose material culture—from locomotives and station architecture to tickets and timetables—reveals India’s colonial ambitions and postcolonial transformations.
“I wanted to show how a public institution can shape, and be shaped by, the people it serves,” Chatterjee explains, underscoring his methodology of a “cultural biography.”
He reflects on the railways’ multiple roles: as an economic engine, a social crucible, and a symbolic stage for nationalist movements. By weaving archival research with personal anecdotes, he demonstrates how travels—from nineteenth-century crossings to modern commutes—encode narratives of mobility, identity, and resistance.
Chatterjee also touches on his passion for railway literature: Every epigraph, every station story, adds a layer to the railway’s collective memory. This chat reaffirms why The Purveyors of Destiny remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the iron arteries that continue to pulse through India’s social and cultural life.
Arup K. Chatterjee 