Calcutta Corner

No Achhe Din for TMC

When Narendra Modi said "achhe deen a?a?yeng?e", clearly he didn't include the Trinamool Congress in it. Forget good days, the ruling party in West Bengal has been having one bad day after another since Modi became Prime Minister. In the last one year Trinamool saw one top leader after another either interrogated or sent to jail in connection with a chit fund scandal being investigated by the central CBI. MPs and MLAs have been asked by the PMO to declare in detail the sources of their election funds, which according to at least one MP speaking to Outlook "is very difficult because we ourselves don't know." Even party chief and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's own integrity and spotlessly clean image has come under scrutiny with questions being asked about why she sold her paintings to chit fund kingpin Sudipta Sen for crores of rupees. 

But just when the party thought things couldn't get any worse, this week Trinamool received another major body blow. It has been sent a notice by the CBI to explain discrepancies in audit reports. Preliminary probes reveal that the party had employed a certain Sri Chakraborty and his firm Trilok to audit its accounts. But the agency discovered that Chakraborty is a patient of Alzheimer's disease and completely incapacitated since the last four years, exactly the number of years that Trinamool has been in power. Make what you will of that.

In fear of a resurrection

Publicly Netaji's family is expressing "shock" — the word was used by at least four of Subhash Bose's relatives since the discovery last week that their family was spied on by the Nehru government for two decades between 1948 and 1968. But many members of the family were keenly aware of what they have called "Nehru's jealousy of Netaji" and "the length to which Nehru would go to prevent Netaji from reappearing on the political scene in India." 

In an interview to Outlook, Madhuri Bose, Netaji's grandniece and the daughter of Amiya Nath Bose, Netaji's nephew who was among those to have been spied on, lashed out at the Congress government's deliberate and sustained efforts to obfuscate the truth about Netaji's disappearance. The demand for the declassification of "the Netaji files" has led to the discovery of secret documents which reveal the espionage by Indian government. Netaji's nephews Sisir Kumar Bose and Amiya Nath Bose were trailed both in the country and in their foreign tours and family letters were intercepted at post offices. But then it has been pointed out that the families of other freedom fighters were also being spied on and Bhagat Singh's nephew has recently demanded declassification of files pertaining to him. 

The question so much is not that they were being spied on but WHY were they being spied on. Did Nehru himself disbelieve the theory that was propagated by his government that Netaji died in a plane crash? Bose's grandnephew and son of Amiyanath Bose told Outlook, "There is little doubt that Nehru feared a comeback by Netaji because he was envious of his mass appeal and possibly feared that his return would threaten his power. The present disclosure that his government was spying on his family confirms that he wanted to ensure that his family was in the dark about his whereabouts."

Dancing against "degeneration"

Calcutta may still call itself the "culture capital of India", but the truth is that there is a growing concern amidst classical dancers, musicians and artists here that the purity of forms is under threat. The influence of "filmy" dance and music is what is feared most. "I was shocked when the mother of a student came to me with the request that I teach her daughter some 'filmy jhatkas'" Odissi dance exponent Alokananda Roy told Outlook. 

In order to arrest the growing "degeneration" a team of two Bharatnatyam dancers — Jita Roy Chowdhury and Sunita Chowdhurie — from Kalamandalam, Calcutta (the Bharatnaytam school run by Guru Thankamani Kutti), initiated a project in which classical dance exponents would be invited to conduct workshops in the city. Bharatnatyam exponent Padmashri Leela Sampson arrived in Calcutta earlier this week to take the first set of classes. 60 students were selected from an application of several hundred. "We selected based on age (at least 20 years old) and experience because our guest experts shouldn't have to train at the rudimentary level," Roy Chowdhury said. "But the entire enterprise proves that there is a great deal of interest in learning the true art forms." 

Chowdhurie pointed out that there was yet no sponsorship and the project was funded by the duo. "Of course there are costs. Just the space rented for the 5-day workshop cost 15,000, for instance. But this is not a profit-making venture as the propagation of classical dance is our aim. There was a 1500-rupee fee or Gurudakshina which the students paid."

Dampened spirits, and firecrackers

As it became increasingly clear that Kolkata Knight Riders' battle with Royal Challengers Bangalore was a losing one for Calcutta, fans started stashing away the firecrackers they had bought for the occasion. An auto driver watching the IPL match at a roadside TV stand organised by his neighborhood club on Friday sighed, "Eto gulo taka joley gelo. Dekhi abar kobey use kora jay." (So many bucks down the drain. Let's see when I can use them again). 

Calcutta's heart patients are not complaining. "I dread every time Calcutta wins a match," said an elderly gentleman who has undergone a bypass surgery, "firecrackers are burst ceaselessly. But the youth is so hotheaded these days that I don't dare protest."

Siege of slogans

Election graffiti on Calcutta wall: "Ma Mati Manusher sorkar…abar ana dorkar" (Trinamool needs to be voted back to power.) A competing CPI-M campaign: "Ki shorkar anley? Ke vote dito emon janley?”" (If we had known better who would have voted for this government?")