Post Poll Scenario: Silence

There is a total silence all around. Even the post poll analysis (explaning away of the loss as well as the jubiliation of winning) seems to be muted and half hearted .. on both sides.

A furious, enormous, all consuming tug of war was on...straining and draining all - party workers & bosses, by standers, aam junta et al, with no one was willing to cede an inch. And then yesterday, it was all over. One side found themselves dragged accross the dividing line and the other - flat on their back, rope in their hands ... won!

Sunday will then be spent in quiet contemplation as the realisation of loss and win sinks in.

Election Eve

Campaigning reached fever pitch over the weekend. The two main parties started plastering the city with gory pictures of burnt and cut bodies each claiming as the other's handiwork. Meetings and rallies were doubled or perhaps tripled.

On Saturday (temperature 41.8) as we whizzed down DH road entered and exited several airwaves: 1st a CPM meet blaring about "Bicchinotabadi (separatist) politics" and while I could wondered if Bengal was to be partitioned once again and how - west west bengal and east west bengal or north west bengal and south west bengal, we hit TMC air space - with Nandigram and Singur and into another left party meet (couldn't see the party banner -- we were hurtling past) shouting about the merits of a certain "netri" - who else but mamati di. A quick stop to unload a passenger and we had an earful of "cows smuggled in from bangladesh and about a cow abbatoir" - BJP meet and lastly (for that stretch) a meet of Gramin Chikitsak Samiti who were going on and on about a healthy government prosob (delivery) kora.

More of the same on Sunday -- which was HOTTER. And this time, at least one party felt the heat too. They had apparently set up a meeting around 10:00am at Lake Market but seeing no takers and probably all half dead with sun strokes, departed, flags, chairs, podium, mikes and all after only half an hour or so!!

And then the skies opened poured down on everyone's meeting and rallies as the deadline for campaigning came up on Monday afternoon. (I think even the party workers were secretly relieved).

Today has been very pleasant. It rained and rained and rained. Its nice and cool now - atleast 10 to 12 degrees cooler. And it has been a relief. Only the normal city noises - cars and buses and horns and general buzz of 9 million residents ... but those are constant fixtures and dont count. No loudspeakers, no michils, no rallies and no new hoardings. Ah! till tomorrow, these 48 hours will be the quitest for a very long time...perhaps for the next 5 years - since normally there is atleast a couple of orators on any given day in Kolkata blaring about something or the other.

More and more buses went off the road on "election duty". That meant general harrassment for commuters...but we are used to cramming into ancient boxes on wheels (something like the cramming into telephone booth fad of ancient times). Many were secretly thankful of the lesser number of buses: They could lead early from work. No seriously, many have had to face this problem today and many are still stuck at bus stops. However, the weather is now helping to somewhat smoothen the wait.

But I think we are going to miss all the crazy hoopla surrounding the elections - all other countries and perhaps even those in rest of India pales at our theatrics! We are going to miss the news bulletins of presiding officers caught skulking off (after poll hours) with the electronic voting machines and the strange tale of some 100 odd officials being transported somewhere on poll duty and all of a sudden they were off loaded from the bus which then zoomed off and these stranded officials blocked the road and created a ruckus!!

We vote tomorrow - in this final and last stage of voting - and hope that this will be the last session for these elections and there will be no need for re-polls.

A brief respite

No this photo isn't of today. It was not clicked by me,

and most certainly its not even of Kolkata. But it is one

I kept looking at for cool comfort when things were

getting UNbearable.

At last. Our collective wait is over (if only for about half an hour). Mercury touched 42 degrees and was soaring. Humidity to boot. And to make matters really ANNOYING, skies were over cast since morning. Not a leaf stirred. And then suddenly, when we were wrapping up at work, homewards bound, a tremendous nor'wester swept in. Then came the rains. Crazy winds and fantastic lightening. So we were stuck. On top of that there was a rush to close windows before the panes shattered. So not only were we stuck, we were stuck indoors with the windows closed and all the hot air trapped in.

Despite our plans of leaving dot at 5.30 - many buses have gone off the roads (something to do with elections - not very sure what though) - we left much later. The narrow roads were rendered narrower because sides were filled with water leaving a narrow - one man -sorry - make that one person strip in the middle. The rickshaws, bikes came whizzing past on either side with all of us pedestrians walking through the centre, splashing us from left and right. And all the way to the bus stop, brilliant flashes lit the sky and scared me witless.

But at the end of the road, there was a welcome sight! A couple frying HOT piyanjis, phuluris and aloo chop. Ah! Just the thing in the cool and pleasant weather.

Waiting for the rains

Sight for several million pairs of sore eyes...alas, not in Kolkata.

Not yet, but soon - hopefully

Kakdip and back...

Had to go to Kakdip yesterday (on work)... and within half an

hour we were able to leave planet polluto behind and
hit the long and not so narrow road...

Drink in the greenery

Reach our destination, meetings, agenda, action plans, good homely
lunch, power cuts without the sweat and grime....and leave

with one last look at the still ponds

Stop by the sunflowers

Wave goodbye to Kakdip bashis


and there she was larger than life...
about to step into a scum filled pond....
to bring us back to reality...



Omnipresent Didi

Mukul....Monay Poraychey?

...Sonar Kella?

Yesterday was Satyajit Ray's 88th Birth anniversary. Tai...his life and times and films was the main story on television yesterday. And a special treat in store: Sonar Kella. I first heard of it as a little girl, in Assam from a friend who had seen it on a recent trip to Kolkata. And what stayed with me was the magic thrill of the deep whisper "Mukul...monay porayche? Sonar Kella".

Years later, when I finally did get to see the film, I think I wept for joy. And each subsequent time, I have lingered over, loved and lapped up every full stop comma, characters, dialogues! And I can say with a lot of confidence that I am not the only one. There was this legendary comedian Louis de Feunes - star of the Gendarme series. My prof at Ecole De Roche told our class that "Le Gendarme" on it's release was seen by 90% of France. Only the very young and the very old and infirm didn't. I think Sonar Kella would be comparable (among bengalis that is). This might not be Ray's best work, however, it has a special special place that cannot be taken by anything else...not even, Ray's other works.

Most of the actors, technicians are gone or retired. Another Sonar Kella cannot be created (the very thought is sacrilegous) and yet it lives on...each time, we find it on TV, we watch it as if for the first time. And so strong is the magic that we wait for the new feluda movies although they pale in comparison - not for the lack of trying though. We understand and accept that. We wait eagerly for the new feluda and go and WATCH it (I saw the last one twice). And it was SRK's bad luck that his "Rab Ne Bana di Jodi" opened along with Feluda and was ofcourse, sidelined!!

How can we ever forget? And one generation will pass on the magic to the next and we will forever wait for Mukul to remember his Sonar Kella.

Poll Tales

The battle now is at fever pitch. The effects are getting to us - am currently down with fever - the daily onslaught of a 1000 blaring mikes, posters, banners, hoardings, flyers, processions, meetings is as bothersome as the hot humid weather.

It had began sedately enough but gained momentum, the battle being mainly between TMC & CPM (but ofcourse). A few lotuses here and there and I think I saw one hoarding (smallish) of Pranab Mukherjee. Local para Party offices opened up - CPM and TMC have theirs in ground floors of vacant buildings at right angles to each other, near my office.

BJP is content to a few flags tied to posts at the bus stand, accross the Diamond Harbour Road - which are there one day and gone the next.

With about 2 weeks remaining, the final onslaught is on. Work keeps me to this side of Kolkata and so I don't know what the scenarios are in traditional CPM strongholds - but unless they come up with something drastic, TMC seems to be winning the battle (of visibility) hands down!

Didi's is everywhere...Slightly larger than life size cut outs are dotting the landscape. There is one just down the Kalighat bridge - on your right. In her white saree, peering in through over hanging branches...standing a top a small cement stoop...like she is about to hail a bus and step in!

And yesterday - the Coup de Grace: I got the schock of my life when I looked out of the bus window and saw didi, hands folded, serenely suicidal in the middle of the tram tracks. On a closer look ... it was a cutout in the space between the tracks ...but pretty effective one!

How do others or even TMC itself top this? Atleast the others have the option of saying that they don't indulge in such gimmicks! But hey...if nothing else, it does provide much needed comic relief.

United we sweat

Phew. It's been unbearable.

Temperatures ranging around 40, 41, 41.8, and if we are lucky (like today), 39 degrees. Plus Humidity - according to Yahoo it is 84% today (felt like 100%). And ofcourse power cuts everywhere and in a bizzare turn of affairs, Kolkata - Dumdum to Behala had 6-10 hours of powercut on Sunday, except for some 16 -20 houses in the Hazra- D'Park - Triangular Park area (us included) and couldn't enjoy our good luck for fear that we'd have a power cut too. And ofcourse there have been outages ever since - mostly as soon as we step into our office and throughly sweaty and tired even before we can began work and around 3pm each afternoon when it's hottest.

There was a met forecast of cyclone Bijli. It never came. (Which has come as a relief for people along the coast). Not only did Bijli bypass us completely, my ever cautious, ever prepared father insisted on having every window tightly shut for a few days after the met announcement which meant our nights - ones inside our appartment were as sweltering as the days.

What the multiple captain theory for KKR, CPM vs TMC couldn't do, the heat wave has. Kolkata is united in endless discussion on how hot it is, whose place is hotter, who suffered the most, prickly heat, boils and boil-lets (phora and phuskuri)...

Chaprasi to CEO everyone feeling the heat which shows no signs whatsoever of abating.

Not much Kolkata in Knight Riders

And there it was: Sourav won't be the captain of Kolkata Knight Riders - rotating or not. Brendan McCullum it would be.

At once the IPL balloon punctured for me. I was amazed at what I was feeling. I tried telling myself that its only a game and one which to my frequent angst gets way too much attention than any other sport in India; that it will be over in a month or so and life will simply move on for everyone including Sourav. And there are more important things in life. But I couldn't dislodge the stiffling pall of gloom which descended. I didn't feel like indulging in a screaming, shouting angry rant against everyone (real or imagined) who was responsible for it. Lost some interest in IPL.

What's left in KKR then? Only the KR? SRK's KR? John Buchanan's KR?

I did try to leave work early to catch the 2nd match last night and made the mistake of telling the auto driver to go super sonic fast: which he did: and had all of us speechless with fright - but I came home with 15 minutes to spare. Watched Chennai lose to Mumbai, saw Dimitri Mascarenhas's fantastic bowling in the first over. And yet that thrill I felt at the last IPL wasn't there. South Africa must have fantastic facilities, everything ship-shape, no power failure (like at Edens last year) but somehow -- that crazy passion wasn't there. Just not the same as seeing it happen in your own hometown (and not only at Eden, but anywhere else in the country), the hordes of manic about cricket fans. That palpable excitement, buzz, build up, the collective agony and ecstacy...not there.

I will be watching the 1st KR (and not so Kolkata KR) match tonight. (hurt and betrayed as I feel...eeeks....can that be me? Aparently it is....despite my telling myself its only a game)!

Bengali New Year 1416

Best wishes for the Bengali new year 1416! Obviously a big ocassion with bengalis worldwide and in Bengal. Alas. No holiday for me this poila baisakh (the first day of the month of Baisakh).

And this morning was sultrier than usual. On top of that I got onto a crowded bus and got no seat for a very long time. There I was sweaty, hot and bothered and hanging on for dear life as the maniac driver (pre-requisitive for all mini bus driver) zoomed and swerved his way through the roads of Kolkata. Until we got stuck in a massive jam on Diamond Harbour Road. On our side of the road, vehicles stretched behind and in front of us as far as the eye could see. And on the other side? One after the other, various processions, boudis and bhadraloks carrying banners, others dressed as Swami Vivekananda, Raja Ram Mohan Roy etc, women doing dandiya for some odd reason, men in pristine white dhoti panjabi! And in midst of all this, autos, taxis, big and small buses, matadors, vans, cycles simply climbed onto the tram tracks in the divider in the middle throwing up a thick blanket of dust.

And then as we moved ahead after a long wait, I saw the other signs of Poila Baisakh: Long queues outside mandirs and equally long ones outside meat shops! Start the new year with puja and end it with a good mangshor jhol (almost a religion in Bengal). Nothing quite like it!

And ofcourse there were the ubiquitous blood donation camps (as important as mangshor jhol it seems). I counted three in the 10 km stretch...must have missed others while I was watching the procession.

Even a long and tiring day at work couldn't stop us from being in a general good mood that is usually associated with all holidays and ofcourse poila baisakh. Subho Naba Barsha to all!

Dawn at Murguma

Impossible work load, overload in fact. Home-work-home-work monday to saturday and very frequently sunday too. Work took me out of station - last month - to Guwahati twice, Bhubaneswar and Nagpur once each (airport to hotel to meeting to hotel to airport everywhere) and Shantiniketan thrown in (for holi) but alas, with office laptop and deadlines looming large. So I live vicariously, through other's travel for travel's sake. Below are some mindblowing photos of Murguma in Purulia. Murguma means mayurer bari - peacock's home. Photos taken by my cousin B.

Viewpoint

V thought it looked like a mountain...

I thought it looked like a fish.

And both were correct in our own ways and from where we were coming ... Me from Bengal and V from the hills!

The Torrid Zone

It has become unbearable. Already. The temperature has been varying between 35 to 39 this past week. And April has only just begun. I look up the exact location of Kolkata on Wikipedia {don't want to do the daab on taal gach trick again} and find that we miss both the tropics Cancer and Capricorn and though we miss Equator as well, we are closer to it than the tropics. However, {aha} we are in what is called the Torrid Zone. Sounds ...umm.. interesting? Well actually that means it is the hottest part of the earth.

The high levels of pollution {my favorite kolkata rant}, combined with high humidity means by the end of the day, we are covered {would go so far as to say, we are actually weighed down by it} a thick layer of grime.

And yet, "sultry tropics" would mean people lounging around in huge cane chairs under slow ceiling fans drinking some thing cool in a tall glass. Must be all those Raj stories. How silly to think romantically of the tropics while sweating it out, with no respite in sight? Afterall, its onlyApril, with May, June, July, August, September, October ahead and the Kolkata summer might stretch into perhaps even November.

For now, I sit back and imagine the coolness this morning, in Gurgaon where there was a a hail storm, and how V must have rushed to get her camera to take the photo and email it to me:

Looks like a fish, doesn't it?

Occupational Hazard

All buses without exception and I mean ALL, slow down at the 'Naba Graha' Mandir on the left of the Kalighat bridge. They don't stop. Just slow down and the conductor or the helper, throws a coin or two which sails out the bus door, over the bridge rails, missing the trees and straight through the mandir door. This must be a regular, routine, daily deed judging by the bulls eye scored by conductor after conductor. I have in the 5 months of commuting to work on this route, never seen a mis throw. I catch a bus between 8:30 and 8:45 - don't know if each bus offers daskshina each time it passes by or just at that time...perhaps by when the purohit is offering morning prayers.

But just imagine if coins came flying from each bus as it passed by ... several every minute .... the amount of dakshina piling up each day. But that's not all I am referring to: I leaned out yesterday and watched the coin arc beautifully inside the mandir narrowly miss the purohit who ducked at the right moment. He did this without missing a mantra! He must be so used to it by now that the chant-duck-chant-duck-chant is now old hat for him! Just another Occupational Hazard.

Its never too late...

This is a narkal gaach - Coconut tree - and not a taal gaach. We get coconuts (brown ones) and daab (fresh green ones) from it.

Its been there outside my window ... just out of my arm's reach for atleast 18 years and maybe even before we moved in here. And yet I just found out about it now. After my Sunday picnic post ... thru aghast phone call (from my friend and host of the picnic) and other blogger(s) via comment. Well its never too late to learn!

Maybe it shouldn't have rained in Assam or No rains for Rupali

I left an already-warm-and-humid-at-6:40 am-Kolkata for Assam. Just an hour and half later, I landed at Guwahati. It was cold. Not cool. Cold. It had apparently rained all night or atleast for the better part of the night. I shivered in my Kolkata summer wear and eyed locals clad in sweaters and shawls enviously. And it rained several times during the two days I was there.

Taxi drivers, hotel manager, waiters, auto drivers, colleagues I met all told me that this was the first rains they have had in 8-9 months.

No rains must have been a terrible ordeal for scores including the father of one Rupali Bhuyan living in Tinsukia. However, the rains couldnot have come at a worse time for Rupali. An article in the Guwahati edition of TOI rerported that Rupali, 17 was yoked to a plough and made to plough her father's fields. It was indeed 8-9 months of no rain, her father kept cursing her and saying a boy would have made things different. And the villagers picked it up from there and somehow things took a strange and unfortunate shape: Rupali Bhuyan plouging the fields in place of her father's bullocks would propitiate the rain gods.

And then the skies opened and it rained and how.

Rupali probably hates her miserable lot in life. But she must be hating the rains even more. In superstition riddled India, no amount of explanations, reasonings would convince her family, neighbours and community. It probably never be written off as a coincidence. THAT would be a miracle.

The report also stated that Women's Rights Group has taken this up but the police said they weren't aware of any such happening since no one had registered a complaint.

Voluntary Blood Donation Camp ... Not quite so

There we were inching (milli-metering, more likely) towards Mallickpur through incredibly congested, narrow roads in the HUMID HEAT. Adding to the general misery were raucous announcements from loudspeakers on lamp posts about a "Swecha Rakta Dan Shibir" - blood donation camp organised by a political party.

But apparently things weren't going too well. The announcer kept asking shop owners to come and donate blood or send an assistant (if they were too busy), targetting some shops repeatedly by taking their names and interspersing the name taking with guilt inducing stories:

How so and so had come all the way from Jhargram and donated quite a few pints; some one else from far off Jaggadal (if one were to believe with the sole purpose of donating blood here, in this camp in a bylane at one extreme end of Kolkata) etc. The best story of them all was that of an elderly lady which the announcer relayed, his voice choked with emotion:

- She said to me ...will u take my blood? Will you? - Why not ma? Why not indeed? If you can come all this way, we will be honored to take your blood, (unlike the blood sucking leaches who prefer hiding behind their counters making money and not bothering about their social responsibility). And so on...

It was another life time ago that Netaji inspired countless through his soul stirring "Give me your blood...". But that was an extra ordinary situation and time with extra ordinary men and women.
Even so, one could hardly ever imagine that those same lines would one day be used on Sharma Stores, Mitra Bhandar, Pintu Pharmacy, Bannerjee Bedding etc in a cringe inducing, guilt rousing, cajoling, coaxing way....making the Swechcha Rakta Daan Shibir not quite so voluntary. Hope the blood donation camp was a successful one. His histrionics made us forgot our irritation at the traffic and just as we were getting quite fond of the loud disembodied voice at the mike, the snarl - unsnarled, and we moved on and if truth be told, a wee bit sorry that we couln't hear him anymore.

Yellow, White and Red

On Chowringhee...

Enroute

Another HOT and MUGGY day. Another late night at work. And what's more I was one of the last to leave. That spookish feeling I get when switching off all the lights and locking up doors on my way out.

A 2 minute walk through a snaky road brings me to the main road and the bus stop. Half way through, someone pressed a cosmic button and hey presto...a cool breeze swept through and within a second everything became PLEASANT. My clothes were no longer sticking to my body, I and everyone else felt and looked refreshed. And I didn't have to wait. A shuttle auto with 2 passengers waiting. I was the all important passenger number 3, which would induce the auto driver to start [otherwise, they would wait and wait and wait till atleast three passengers turned up]. I could shut my eyes and pretend that I was away in some hill station. I had to shut my ears too - to block the cacaphony of a million vehicles. And ignore million dust particles that the breeze threw up, bigger ones than the record breaking suspended particles in the air . But hey... we make the most of such "cosmic benevolence" rare as they are and don't believe in nitpicking.

An auto change at Taratolla and onto another for Deshopriyo Park and in 30 short [the driver was a grand prix driver in a previous life] and hair raising [zig-zag, whoosh past enormous buses, swanky cars, reckless cyclists, jay walkers] minutes later, I could see the D'park street signal - my destination, when the air filled [redolent is the right word] with the marvellous fragrance of rajnigandha from the many flower stalls lining the roads in Lake Market. MARVELLOUS.

Shantiniketan

The names says it all. It really is the abode of peace - at least in my personal experience. Went there last 7 years ago. 'It's not the same any more'. 'Has changed (and for the worse)', etc., comments fly. But there I was coming in from Assam (work) late on Monday night and packed and ready early next morning for Shantiniketan. I was tired. It was going to be HOT. But having said yes to the trip long back, couldn't back out. Atleast I would spend two days in company of friends I rarely get to meet nowadays. But as it turned out...fortune favours the bold! As our Sumo crammed with 8 of us + the driver + assorted bags, one wheelchair to boot...sped out of Kolkata ... the sun sort of didn't rise despite it being nearly 7:00 am. The skies darkened further and a cool breeze made us shiver (we were all of us in our most comfortable, sleeveless, worse for wear Kolkata summer wear). Ah! Kothai jeno brishti porchay.

A short stop at Shaktigarh for a quick breakfast of kochuri, aloor tarkari and ofcourse the famous langcha - took me longer to read the names of all the langcha shops - Langcha Mahal, Langcha Kutir, Langcha dham, langcha stop, langcha bhavan, langcha bhuvan, Langcha godam, Langcha ghar...and ofcourse each had one unique claim to fame - Mithun Chakraborty ate here, Mahanayak Uttam Kumar ate there, here was Abhijeet smiling and there was Subhash Chakraborty in person at Langcha Mahal entourage, guards et al (on our way back).

And then we entered Birbhum. I would have known it even without the mileposts. The scenery changes completely. Flat wide expanse of bare fields like blond brush, ...the dusty dusky green in the distance, beautiful mud huts, red earth and ofcourse, I don't quite know I am filled with glee and there I am sitting at the back of the cramped sumo humming...what else - gram chara oi ranga matir poth!

And then two days of bliss. Soaking in that special variety of shanti that one gets there. Still pools, a few hens, bleating goats there, boys and girls on cycles...the still timeless quality in the air, the sated contentment, winding ranga matir path, everything seems to be posing for a gigantic, real life tableaux and I can't get enough of it.

Despite the physical weariness, mentally, I am fully re-charged.