Calcutta Corner

General Inspiration
If Iqbal, the Trinamool Congress councillor who is the main accused in the murder of a cop in Calcutta’s Garden Reach area, is feeling somewhat embarrassed about initially fleeing the scene to avoid arrest, he could look to General Musharraf for inspiration. The former Pakistani General’s dramatic bolting from the courtroom to avoid arrest even as the judge was announcing the rejection of his bail plea makes Munna’s (that is Iqbal’s) escape look like mere juvenile delinquency.

Chit-ty Chit-ty Bandh Bandh
Those who attended the meeting in which Mamata Banerjee decided to pull the plug on the UPA II government last year said that Kunal Ghosh, the TMC Rajya Sabha MP, tried to urge Didi not to do it. Though Didi snubbed him outright and went ahead with the decision, insiders said that Ghosh was worried that the centre would take out its vengeance on people like him. How’s that? Well, Ghosh is the CEO of a “chit-fund” company (Sharadha) which is allegedly among the many which has for several decades been duping hundreds and thousands of small-time investors of their money. These companies then used this ill-gotten capital to float different business ventures.

Political parties like TMC come into the picture because they shared a symbiotic relationship with the chit fund companies which had started print and electronic media businesses. TMC, before it came to power in Bengal, depended on many of the publications and channels which were financed by these chit funds for publicity. Ghosh's Bengali daily, Sambad Pratidin has been seen largely as a TMC mouthpiece. So when he was made Rajya Sabha MP as soon as Didi came to power not many were surprised. Well, as Ghosh feared, the Centre has indeed got after him and others like him. While the process started almost as soon as TMC withdrew support from the Centre with the Central corporate affairs ministry announcing that it would begin investigations into the dubious dealings of chit funds in Bengal, this week it actually went ahead and filed four FIRs against the owners of the Sharadha Group.

Criminal Creativity
Evidently there is a thin line between the creative mind and the criminal one. Consider the following system of theft devised by a gang of Calcutta criminals who have been branded the “auto-theft racketeers”. Posing as passengers, they would hop onto a three wheeler or autorikshaw. After travelling a few kilometers they would request the driver to fetch them a packet of cigarettes from a corner shop. Once he got off, one of the gang would slide into the driver’s seat and drive off. The Calcutta detective department this week busted the racket, which even they concede is amongst the most creative that they have ever come across.

The Baishakhi Rain
On Wednesday, a Nor’wester storm blowing at 126 kilometers per hour ripped through Calcutta. This year’s first Kaal Baishakhi after Poila Baishakh, the Bengali New Year, was as breathtakingly beautiful as always. Dark clouds slowly gathered in the horizon. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Lightening flashed. And down came the rain. But as always it left behind a trail of devastation in its wake. The morning after saw the usual scenes. Uprooted trees. Snapped electrical wires. The worst hit by these storms are the poor – those who live in shanties and huts or on the street. The havoc that such storms wreak on the poor almost makes one feel guilty about cherishing the beauty of a Kaal Baishakhi.