Bengal - cusp of change

This started off as a reply to a friend of mine who is doing his Phd in political sciences. He had written a very well researched article on Rabindranath Tagore. Now I had not much informed information about Tagore being indifferent to his various works and knowing him more as a painting which showed a man in a flowing robe and long white beard! Must confess was fascinated by the beard.

Anyway on to the letter, my friend did touch upon the elections in Bengal and hence this reply.

Dude, nice write up. I can't comment on Tagore. Inspite of growing up in Cal, I was somehow not exposed enough to his writings. I did see the odd Ghare Baire but again not read enough to make an informed opinion on him/his writings.

The "Didi" culture, however, is a different ball game. Even though everyone calls this the year when change happens and when Bengal shall awaken to a new era, I believe it started some time back. It started with Operation Sunshine, Mamta being bitten and Jyoti Basu's 'historical mistake'. And this I could see and hence comment upon.

To use a cliche, growing up in the land of power cuts and protest marches, we were taught to believe this was the ideal democracy, you could protest and rant and rave, burn buses, call 'hartals' and do whatsoever to make sure the one ideal of equality for all is kept alive. Somewhere in between all this I was not told that you could protest but this was limited to topics on which the communists would agree. And they had the "intelligent people" supporting them. The theatre artists and the writers, the cinema makers and the policy makers - all hand in hand.
And then Mamta Banerjee happened. The changes were small but visible. The most visible being the local para big shots, Benoyda and his ilk, who seemed to be always free whatever the time of day (I used to wonder and I still do - how the fuck do they earn their money?) no longer carried the red flag ... they carried symbols of grass roots!!! Operation Sunshine came and went, Mamta got bitten, more protests, more buses burnt, strangely no more power cuts, more pujos ... slowly all the "intellectuals" (aforementioned definitions) were now supporting the "grass-roots revolution".


And then finally Trinamool was in charge. So the locality where we stayed, famously for having Jyoti Basu's house (that's how we used to give directions, opposite Jyoti Basu's house) was in Mamta's bag.

And this was probably 2000 or 2001 if memory serves me right.
So its close to 10 years since Mamta has made her mark. And this month, she may become the next Chief Minister of West Bengal. There will be editorials galore on how she rose from nothing, comparisons to the Phoenix, focus on her living like your neighbourhood boudi, whitewashed walls, small house, nothing fancy. The end of communism, no more red flags, Buddhadeb marked the end, they had lost touch with reality and so on and so forth.
Before I proceed to my next para, let me emphasise, I am not a communist (I swear by the free market), I do not support the Trinamool, I have no liking for the FIRST FAMILY of Indian politics and I positively abhor the likes of BJP and its ilk who thinking their mothers are cows! Where does that leave me politically, I will leave that for another time but for now ...


What has Trinamool done in the last 10 years that we are so welcoming of this change? Is there anything which stands out that we can say wow ... we need them.

Let me think -
1. They scream their lungs out all the time
2. They scuppered any chance of the Nano being produced in Bengal
3. They do everything in para 3 (protest and rant and rave, burn buses, call 'hartals' and do whatsoever to make sure the one ideal of equality for all is kept alive)


Wait a minute isn't that what we said was being done by the communists. Ah yes! So now it is being done by the Trinamoolites (?).


So what change are we talking about?
Me

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