The text ‘My Love Story with the City of Joy,’ which is taken from The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre, features in B.Ed. 1st Year’s General English book (Tribhuvan University). Here follow the key takeaways from the text:
1. A 1985 novel “The City of Joy” written by French writer Dominique Lapierre was made into a movie by the same name in 1992.
2. Dominique Lapierre, a French writer, spent two years among the people of a slum in Calcutta, researching and recording information he needed for his next book. Then back in his home in France, he wrote his most popular book, the novel “The City of Joy.” As the slum’s name was ‘Anand Nagar,’ he used the same name in translation – The City of Joy – for his novel. In this novel, Lapierre depicted the lives of the people living in that slum of Calcutta, and highlighted their virtues of courage, vitality and hope amidst poverty, hardship and discrimination. Many characters and their stories in the book resembled the real people living in the slum, and many real names were used. The book got translated into many languages, and it was received well and praised by the people all around the world.
3. After the book was published, Lapierre received many letters of appreciation, and money and valuable things too, to go for the real poor people of the City of Joy in Calcutta. He channeled all those funds and half of all his royalties to the heroes of his book and to the humanitarian institutions working in Calcutta by founding an association called “Action Aid for Lepers’ Children of Calcutta.” With the help of the money thus received many projects were launched including refuge centres for leper and polio children, dispensaries, schools, rehabilitation workshops, education programs, sanitary actions, and so forth.
4. A future project has been planned: an irrigation program affecting nineteen villages. After the success of this project, the villagers will be able to grow crops throughout the year, and thus, won’t have to go to the city of Calcutta again to find work in the absence of food in the village.
5. In December 1987, the mayor of the city of Calcutta, Mr. K.K. Basu and his Municipal Council honored Dominique Lapierre and his wife and laid a plan before them for a development project of the Municipal Corporation called “Calcutta-‘City of Joy’-Designs for Tomorrow.” One of the things it outlined to do was the daily distribution to the slum’s three million residents of ten litres of drinking water each.
6. In 1985, British director Roland Joffe and Canadian producer Jake Eberts met Lapierre and proposed to make a movie out of his book “The City of Joy.” He agreed. When the permission was asked to change Kovalski, the Polish priest in the book, into a woman in order to avoid an all-male cast, he agreed to that too.
7. In 1991, the shooting of the movie “The City of Joy” began. American star Patrick Swayze played the American doctor Max Loeb of the book. Two of India’s great actors, Om Puri and Shabana Azmi played Hasari Pal, the rickshaw-puller, and his wife, Kamla of the book.
8. There were many obstacles while making the movie. The controversial thing like India was being exploited by Hollywood was circulated in scandal magazines. In spite of many difficulties, the movie was finished making, and it became another success after the book itself.
9. Dominique Lapierre has had incredible experiences and learned a lot because of The City of Joy (which refers to all: the place and the people, the novel, and the movie). He has also been a help to many poor and needy people of India. And wherever he goes, he receives respect and praise for what he has done. So, he loves The City of Joy very much. Hence, this is “his love story with the City of Joy.”
Ramrowriter 
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