Published June 22nd, 2009
in Bengal.
[ Caption: “Ami Miss Calcutta 1976″ Ms. Sen—she is talking to a Maoist. With a red band on her head. Yes Ms. Sen, we may not know your “statistics” (Context: this Bangla song—ekhono to keu jaane na amar statistics) but we sure know how “independent” you are.]
Over the past three decades, the Left Front’s Red fortress in Bengal had acquired its aura of impregnability based on the Party’s absolute stranglehold over rural Bengal. While anti-incumbency, outrage at lack of development, atrocities like Bantala and Birati might have lead to the loss of a few seats in Kolkata and some impassioned editorials in Anandabazar from time to time, it remained so insignificant in the electoral scheme of things, that the Politburo Pilots merely shrugged them off as not something worth getting their tea cold over. This confidence stemmed from the strategic infiltration of the party into all the institutions of rural life —panchayats, police, business and district administration– all of whom could be expected to work synergistically to keep the rural populace “in line”.
Continue reading ‘My Name Is Red’
Published June 12th, 2009
in Bengal and Calcutta.
[Picture from this movie]
That’s Claudia Ciesla, the lady in the news recently. No that’s not why I posted the picture.
It’s seldom that in a picture with 2 ladies and that too when one of them is as fantabulous as Claudia that my eyes wonder over to the gentleman in the center, playing the role of a don.
But in this case, what else can one do?
Continue reading ‘The Return Of Apu’
Published March 24th, 2009
in Bengal, Calcutta and Silly.
March, Year of the Lord 2009. [Link]
“If Trinamool Congress comes to power, we’ll show what is called development. Tell me why East Midnapore’s vast coastline, Digha, cannot be turned into Goa? Or northern Bengal cannot be developed like Asia’s Switzerland, when we’ve all resources available in these regions?” Mamata told a press conference in Kolkata.
“Kolkata is an international place and it will be transformed into London, if Trinamool Congress comes to power,” added Mamata.
March, Year of the Lord 2013.
Continue reading ‘The New London’
Published January 5th, 2009
in Bengal, Calcutta and Creative Writing.
[This is a work of fiction. It is somewhat long. A few of the references in the later half of the story are Bengal-specific. Any resemblance to people living or dead…you know the rest. The story is inspired by the horrible year my home state of Bengal has had in terms of the cancellation of the Nano project and the continuing nightmare in 2009 where the decisions of the courts cannot be enforced as a result of “popular” ire.]
Chapter 1:
Kasai sits on the steamer as it moves down the muddy waters of Ganga towards Calcutta. He looks suspiciously at his fellow passengers all of whom are playing bridge and talking to themselves loudly.
He however is silent. He is nervous. The sweat rolls down his brow.
Somewhere up above a crow defecates on his shoulder.
He barely notices.
Continue reading ‘Kolkata Kasai’
Published September 24th, 2008
in Bengal.
Goodbye. Tata. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehn. Goodnight.
Adieu. Adieu. To you. And you. And you.
Vamoose Mera Anmolya “Ratan”. Don’t forget to carry your ugly industrialist designs with you. And please take along Infosys and others with you too. We don’t need your kind here. Didn’t you hear what we just said? Adieu. To you and you and you.
Continue reading ‘Run Tata Run’
Co
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