Calcutta Corner

Positive, Negative

“I am a positive person. But the press is negative. All that the media does is brings out news about murders and rapes.” These are the words spoken by none other than Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. This was her reaction to local print and television channels reporting on the rising crime in Calcutta and suburban Bengal. She has accused the media of concocting stories of rape and even being paid by vested interests to do so. In the meantime, here is what is going on in and around Calcutta lately: A boy in his late teens riding a motorbike was crushed to death allegedly by a police van when he did not immediately comply with the  demands by a couple of constables for a bribe. A girl in her mid-teens who was visiting her relatives in Calcutta from Mumbai was raped in a park. A young man,  who protested local goons ‘eve-teasing’ his sister, was beaten up and has been sent to hospital. Two children—a brother and sister—aged seven and eight were molested by the driver of the school carpool and according the children’s mother, the police initially refused to act on her complaint, only making an arrest twelve days later, after the incident was reported in the media. When Mamata Banerjee was an opposition leader, before she was elected Chief Minister, she would often rush to be seen by the sides of such victims. Today we are all supposed to turn a blind eye.

Dancing for Joy

“Oh I was dancing for joy. What else is a person supposed to do in jail? Stop asking me stupid questions,” a sarcastic Shiladitya Chowdhury told a television anchor, who was interviewing him after his release from jail and asked him what the last few weeks had felt like. The farmer who had been accused by Mamata Banerjee of being a Maoist when at a rally held in Jangalmahal— Bengal’s ‘Maoist-affected’ area— he asked her why she had made false promises to the poor, clearly did not believe in being polite. “In fact, this is his biggest problem,” Shiladitya’s mother had told us when we went to their house in Jangalmahal, while Shiladitya was still in jail. “He speaks his mind, without bothering to be nice,“ she added. “I’ve scolded him many times for his bluntness but he never learnt. He means well and thinks that everyone will understand him. He actually loves Didi and had gone to speak to her almost indulgently mock-scolding her like a son does
to a mother. But he did not realize that it would land him in jail.” Released on bail after signing a bond of 1000 rupees, he was reunited with his family. They were   caught on camera telling him to tone down after the caustic remark directed at the news anchor, who didn’t seem to take offence at all. 

In fact, there is so much support for the farmer that a parody created by musician Kabir Suman based on Tagore’s popular song Momo Chittey in which he satirizes the government action has gone viral on the Web. Suman— who had joined Trinamool Congress in the party’s glory days before the state elections, when Bengal’s intellectuals saw  Mamata Banerjee as the alternative to Nandigram/Singur/Lalgarh-tainted Left — has distanced himself from the post-election “excesses” of the new regime by openly declaring his disappointment through his songs.

Understanding the Law

When a division bench of the Calcutta High Court nullified the Singur Land Act, which the TMC government had passed in a hurry almost as soon as it came to power so that it could return the farmers of Singur their land as per her campaign promise, the Bengal government had vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court. They did. This week, admitting the plea, the SC stayed the HC verdict. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that it was a victory and that it was recognition of the legitimacy of the legislation. However, Tata Motors, to whom the land had been leased for the setting up of its small car (Nano) factory and who had appealed against the TMC’s new legislature, pointed out that contrary to what Didi is projecting as a win, the SC order was not a verdict but merely a formal procedure, admitting the plea. The Bengal chief minister, who as she has often pointed out herself, is a lawyer herself and says that she understands law!

Smoking Kills

The Ministry of Health has ordered that the disclaimer “smoking kills” has to be flashed on screen each time a character smokes in a film. This rule has outraged many filmmakers. Expressing their disapproval some of Bengal’s directors spoke to a local daily tabloid about why they disapproved. Excerpts from their quotes: 

Aparna Sen:  The new ruling…has left me astounded! It is a direct infringement on artistic freedom…That would completely destroy the carefully constructed reality filmmakers strive so hard to achieve in their cinema.

Rituparno Ghosh: I think if you have, ‘smoking kills’ popping up every now and then in a movie, we will give the act of smoking a lot more importance. There are many other things we do on screen and off it which could be carcinogenic. We have to stop all of that then. Also, through the activity of smoking we are often able to create social and socio-cultural identities.

Goutam Ghosh: There is simply no justification to the new ruling. The government cannot ban smoking because they make huge amounts of money through excise and all. So it is always cinema which has to suffer. As a filmmaker I will make films which reflect society and our society is filled with people who are smokers. 

Back of Bus

Written behind a bus with the picture of a tiger: Haloom…Eloom…Kheloom…Geloom (Roared…Came…Ate…Went)