According to Pradip Sinha, some Englishmen were puzzled that wealthy Indians in Calcutta's black town seemed to see it as a sign of prestige if their palaces were surrounded by teeming, thatch-roofed bustees (slums) inhabited by poor servants, clients, and political faction followers--those in charge of sanitation and fire safety were especially dismayed.

A brush with an urban beggar, a glance out the window of a train moving through the countryside, a sudden view down a street of squalid bustees on the way to the airport -- this is about all most of us ever see of India's underside.

Eschewing the typical view of the bustees (areas of land with hutments) as typifying poverty in the city, Thomas explains their evolution in the nineteenth century, and how the ownership and tenancy structure bedevilled attempts at improvement for decades.