Calcutta Corner

Clean Chits

Earlier this year, during rural poll campaigning in the state, the Trinamool party found itself in the eye of a storm when its Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal incited party cadres to go on the rampage and set fire to the houses of opposition candidates. Not only did the party leadership, including chief minister Mamata Banerjee, stood by him, making light of the comments, when Birbhum’s Trinamool Member of Parliament, actress Satabdi Roy, criticized the comments, she was reprimanded by the CM for “anti-party” comments. Not surprisingly, this has really emboldened Mondal, who is anyway perceived to be a local toughie. This week, he once again made inflammatory statements, urging his party workers to engage in physical violence against members of the opposition. He said, “It is being noticed that Congress activists have been pulling down posters of Mamata Banerjee. My instruction to my party workers is “Go ahead and cut off the wrists of anyone who is seen to be doing that.” What did his party leadership have to say to these comments? They gave him a clean chit once again. At a public meeting, later in the day, after the comments had been made, Trinamool’s general secretary Mukul Roy came to his defence saying, “The comments were meant symbolically. Just like Mahatma Gandhi spoke about turning the other cheek, if one cheek was slapped. These comments should not be taken literally.” What is noteworthy is that while Roy made the comments, his colleague Satabdi was present, giving rise to speculation that she was made to do so as a kind of damage-control for her earlier criticism. Anubrata himself was also present at the meeting where he was given the clean chit. He sat there looking pleased with himself, flanked on either side by the two Roys. According to some reports, in some places posters of the Congress hand were slashed near the wrist with red ink.

Violent Pick Pockets

Pick pockets are not new to public buses in Calcutta. In fact “Pocket-mar hoitey shabdhan” ( “Beware of pick pockets”) is something that you will find scribbled on the inside wall of all buses in Calcutta along with signs like, “Ladies”, “senior citizens” or “protibondi (physically-challenge), etc. The police claim that the modus operandi of a pick pocket is: Alighting a crammed-to-capacity bus when finding a seat or even just a spot to stand becomes a passenger’s sole focus. As they are thus diverted, the pick pocket strikes, slipping a hand into their unsuspecting pockets. Sometimes they do this when the passenger is getting off or is standing in a such a crowded spot and pressed against so many bodies and body parts that a hand slipping into a pocket will not even be noticed. According to police another common method is to use a blade or knife to slash the bottom of unsuspecting women’s purses and taking out the contents. Pick pockets mostly operate in gangs and once a wallet has been removed it is passed on— like in a relay race— to a partner-in-crime who will then pass it on to someone standing closest to the entrance/exit and who can get off fast. So even if one person still on bus is caught the evidence is no longer on it. Not that it’s a cake walk for pick pockets. Calcutta’s street-savvy passengers who are used to the daily grind on buses are not known to be fooled easily with police citing numerous instances of the pick pockets getting caught red handed. In fact a recent Bengali comedy— Goray Gondogol— begins with the scene of pick pocket getting caught with his hand in a passenger’s pocket. Though these petty thefts have been considered a nuisance and part of Calcutta’s crime scene, these were never earlier considered violent crimes and therefore passengers never really felt the kind of fear associated with say armed robbery or other crimes. 

But this week a 25-year-old man found his wrist slashed with a sharp object (no, this has nothing to do with the Anubrato Mondal threat mentioned above) when he caught a hand slipping into his pocket. As the passenger tried to stop the pick pocket from pulling out his wallet, he felt a sharp sting and then he was bleeding profusely. As other shocked passengers came to his rescue the pick pocket slipped out, got off and disappeared into the crowd. All this took place in broad day light. At 10:30 in the morning on a week-day. The 25-year-old went to a hospital where he treated for his injuries and administered a tetanus injection. But when he went to the police to lodge a complaint in the area, the police claimed to be clueless wondering what they could do now that the pick pocket had disappeared. The incident is an alarming symptom of the way violent crime is growing in the state.

Potatoes On The Run

A severe potato crisis has hit Bengal. If there is one food item that can compete with the ‘fish’ as the Bengali’s staple to go with rice, it’s the potato. But since the end of last week potatoes have all but disappeared from the markets. First to go was the common variety known as “Jyoti.” Currently priced at 13 rupees per kilo, the few shops where it was available, it was going for anywhere between 14 and 17 rupees per kilo. Customers stood in long queues in front of these. By Wednesday even the more expensive “Chandramukhi” potato was missing from the markets. Priced at 17 rupees, it was going for anywhere between 20 and 25. The sudden crisis was supposedly brought on by because of black marketeering. The state government had issued orders to potato dealers that in spite of rise of potato prices in other neighbouring states like Orissa and Jharkhand, not to hike prices and sell only at the current rates: Rs 13 for Jyoti and Rs 17 for Chandramukhi. But potato merchants reluctant to make losses were sending them off to other states or stocking them up. In fact 12 truckloads of the common potato were intercepted by police near the border with Jharkhand and sent back to Calcutta. Mamata Banerjee warned merchants, “I will not tolerate black marketeering. If consumers are being denied their basic staples at the fair price today, tomorrow they will have to be compensated and given at a much lower price than the market price. So pay heed and stop foul practices.” In the meantime opposition leader, CPIM’s Surya Kanta Mishra, has accused the TMC of being funded by potato dealers, attributing this alleged fact to the potato merchants’ defying government orders. “The TMC took the potato dealer’s help during election. So now they are doing whatever they want to and the government can do nothing about it. It’s the common people who are suffering.” TMC of course, denied the charges. TMC leader Madan Mitra said, “First they accuse us of taking money from chit fund companies, now from potato dealers! If anything it was the CPM which used potato and other vegetable dealers.” In the meantime as political parties pass the buck as usual, customers are paying the price.

New Look

The new-look Calcutta Airport seems to be quite a hit with our international guests who had visited the city before. During a recent trip, a German tourist looking for directions said to me, “I don’t remember the Calcutta Airport being this nice. Last time I came four years ago it was very different. Now it looks like any international airport.” Considering that Germany has some of most state-of-the-art international airports, that was saying a lot. My own favourite airports in the east are the ones like Bagdogra, Dibrugarh, or Jamshedpur— tiny, compared to Calcutta, but beautiful surrounded by distant hills stretch out in the horizon.

Signs in Rhyme

A sign put by forest department officials on the road to Pashupati (Nepal border), near Darjeeling: “Don’t cut wood…please try to be good.”