Mamata walks, media gawks, work stops

Let’s go back to the Bollywood eighties, for precisely no other reason than for the fact that the decade was slightly, ahem, vain. Imagine a minister, say Kulbhushan Kharbanda, visiting a hospital in a B-town; Nagpur? The media follows the minister -- really those journos in small-town India had no better stories than a minister visit those days. For byline stories, all they did all year was to sit on their backside for a minister to visit, hopefully impregnate a poor woman from a farmer’s family or take money from the money lenders who had gotten all the money in the first place from poor farmers, who would eventually be driven to suicide, which finally would start making news a decade later.
But that’s bunkum.
Anyway, minister visits hospital in full media glare, decides to walk into the ICU, with the media in toe, the conscientious ICU chief bars him, says all that jing-bang would create a chaos and cause problems. Minister is aghast: a minion like the doctor has the bloody gall to tell him off?
I did not invite the media, he says. And why would you not let them in? You surely have something to hide. Meet me at my office tomorrow.
Sorry sir, doctor pleads. With folded hands for effect, tears threatening to burst out. I have a few surgeries lined up tomorrow. It’s Friday -- my surgery day.
Bloody hell, minister barks.
On his way out, he sees two patients on stretchers. Did my presence create trouble for you? Are you getting any less attention?
The two were in too much pain anyway; all they could muster was, no sir.
Doctor suspended, screams the lead header the following day in ‘The Navbharat Times (they always showed NBT in those days; but you can take your pick of the paper. If it’s IE, just increase the headline by 10 more words: In wake of minister maelstrom, doctor gets the axe for insubordination. Or some such.)
Yes, the reason for the suspension is writ large on the wall, sorry NBT story: insubordination and misconduct, to quote from the report.
If Y Chopra was still an angst-ridden man of circa ‘Deewar’ in the 80s, he would have picked up on the theme and got the neighbours to catch hold of the doctor’s son and gotten them to tattoo on the teen’s hand: Mera baap bore hai. And M Desai in his elements would have killed the patient who the minister spoke to, and his son would have grown up to avenge the death.
Okay, let’s not get carried away with sappy scripts; those are different tales, to be told another day.
Fast-forward a few years. To May 26, 2011 to be precise. Change Nagpur to Kolkata, and the minister to a chief minister – Mamata Banerjee, to be precise -- and cut out the ICU bit (that was only for added drama). But the story still holds: why would you want to create a racket at a hospital?
The headline the day after (May 27) said just that (pardon the tongue in cheek reference to NBT and IE; for future naukri’s sake let this be official, I love both mastheads): suspended for “insubordination and misconduct” (The Telegraph).
How long will it take for the new chief minister to understand that administration is different from rabble rousing? That merely leaving your car once you near your office and starting to walk could be good for the TRPs, but a headache for the police and administration? That she is not merely putting her life at stake (that’s her own business) but putting many lives at stake since the situation could lead to a stampede? That walk-ins and walk-outs are part of the deal when you are in opposition; it’s a different ball game when you are in administration? That walking into government hospitals and checking about reasons for faulty radiology machines and patient convenience isn’t the smartest thing to do, because chiding those doctors and nurses in front of the patients would eventually harm their medication?
Mamata Banerjee, it seems, has been voted in, but it seems in her mind she is still the opposition in the state. She is the CM, someone should politely remind her that.
She needs to take time out of her busy schedule of firing and hiring and take on the muddy roads that lead to Nandigram and Singur, which now is under her administrative control. She cannot cry slogans from Kolkata, she cannot blame others. Jowab chai, jowab dao cannot be her slogan any more -- she has to take a call on the redistribution of land of the farmers, she cannot leave it for someone else.
She cannot be a liability for her own administration – she cannot do walk-in interviews in hospitals, she cannot walk out over a tiff.
Let's put this in perspective: the neurosurgeon concerned was hired to operate, not to entertain state guests during working hours. Banerjee might be accustomed to such treatment from her Tollywood buddies, but this is a whole new game altogether.
It’s still difficult to digest her last few words (as reported in the media) before she left the said hospital – “they always blame me for everything.”
But isn’t that what you wanted, Didi? To be the boss of West Bengal. Well, then, bosses are blamed for "everything", including the current mess that you have inherited.
One can just hope that she knows what she has taken on.
In one word, Banerjee has to grow up, and grow up quickly. She cannot cry foul any more. Her torn old white saree and her 34 years of struggle have got her the power, but to sustain it she needs to don a new avatar. While the Shatabdi Roys and Tapas Pauls of her glamour world can be cast in her puppet show, it needs to be seen how long they stay by her side after she puts into effect her pre-election manifesto: “Stop entry of big capital, domestic or foreign, in retail sector.”
(Amit Mitra is cringing.)
“No foreign capital in sectors other than high-quality technology and other industries, indispensable for the country.”
(Mitra cringing further.)
Opposing “construction of all shopping malls in Bengal”. (Shatabdi Roy cringes, worries where her next designer saree is going to come from.)
Putting such ideas into practice, now that she is running the show, could leave even her Men Friday Partha Chatterjee and Dereck O’Brien cringing!
I am sure Mamata means well with what she has done in the one week since taking oath as the chief minister, and I am not calling these actions her antics, though she has been doing them for the last 30 years and more. For the sake of the people in that state, I hope she gets well soon. Fingers crossed.

Welcome 1418: Wish list of a shirker

The temperature outside is in the mid-30s, and the humidity would, if I decide to take a walk for an hour or so, make me a photograph on the wall, and I welcome the new year. The Bangla new year, that is. Now don’t misunderstand me. I am no Anglophone, I speak Bangla perfectly well without even a hint of accent, and I NEVER go out for a walk for about an hour. Not if the weather and humidity was the at its Spring best (or whatever time of the year it is supposed to be at its best for a one-hour walk), and not even if you put a gun on my head and ask me to walk for an hour.
The point is, if you are holding a gun with the intention to kill me if I don’t walk for the said one hour, you might as well pull the trigger. For, I would die anyway after walking for an hour; so why tire myself out before turning into a photograph?
But let me come to the point straightaway: it’s a new year, even if the temperature outside is in the mid-30s and the sweltering weather would kill me if I go out for an hour’s walk. And it’s still a new year even if I don’t know anyone who follows the dates in the calendar that says a fresh year begins on April 14 (okay Baisakh 1).
Anyway, dear reader, now that I have your attention with all that claptrap (I have to have it, if you have come this far), I have a wish-list for the new year. Here we go:

1. I wish I had loads of ‘Bangla’ (local country liquor, as they are called in both sides) and passed out. Wouldn’t have to do any work for the rest of the day, and better part of tomorrow.

2. I wish I was an employee of Bangladesh government. Wouldn’t have to work for three days. And since we are at it, and there’s no stopping me, I wish I could cross the border and become employee of the Indian government on the fourth day -- then I would get the Sunday off as well.

3. I wish I was in school. Then I could have had all these holidays, and then not have to work even after the holidays got over.

4. I wish I was a cricketer, playing the IPL, and day-night ODIs for my country. Then I wouldn’t do anything all day and then play at night. But strictly ODIs, and strictly day-nighters, since I hate to sign autographs during the day. That’s also work.

5. I wish I was a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Then I would be millionaire and never have to work. For peace, you see, is never enforceable; so I do not need tgo work after collecting the prize and the cheque.

6. Now, how about being a writer? I would think all day, and then think back all night whether all that I thought all day could be written down.

7. I wish I was a lawyer. I would then enjoy all the sarkari holidays and then ask for extension on my case whenever the next working day comes. And if I am the judge as well, I would set the next date of hearing in the next new year, which, you see, would again be a holiday.

8. I wish I was a celebrity. Then I could celebrate my existence by declaring that I would not be party to any party that celebrates my and fellow celebrities’ existence.

9. I wish I was an actor. Then I could act hurt even on working days and not go for shoots.

10. I wish tomorrow was also a holiday.

Pakistan blown away, bring on the Lankans

For all practical purposes, the heat was on. Almost everyone I know in Dhaka wanted a Pakistan-India (in that order; Pakistan and India!) semifinal. And just after Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss, a downpour began here. As if to cool the atmosphere.

I cried out even before the assembled guests at Harsha Bhogle‘s studio had the time to: what was Ashish Nehra doing in the team in place of R Ashwin? The guy can’t bat, can’t field, and can’t bowl in most conditions outside seaming ones. One of those stupid decisions that come to a mind in stupor before the big fall, I said; nay shouted.

Shut up and watch the match, said wife.

I refused to — I wasn’t going to be a part of this hara-kiri, I said and went to the bedroom to spend the half hour before going to office.

So I missed out on Sehwag’s initial onslaught, then his fall. I got ready and sat on the sofa to put my shoes on when Sachin Tendulkar missed one and was given leg before. Looked sort of plumb to me but for the fact that Sachin had taken a biggish stride outside. I don’t bite nails, and neither could Sachin (who does with such regularity that I often wonder where he gets all those nails from) since he was wearing gloves and all.

Nope, said the replay, only to promptly misjudge the next delivery.

Nope, not stumped, said the TV replay again, and I went to office.

Man, did I know what sort of reception was awaiting me there! Almost everyone was for Pakistan, and every other person was asking me to lay a bet. But I wasn’t to be baited. I was representing the tricolour, mind you, and so I did not use the expletives that almost ejected themselves voluntarily, as colleague after colleague said it’s all right; just a game after all, and losing doesn’t really matter in a game!

Many were serious, some said in jest, and most said it of course to rile me. All taken in good humour, though I kept losing it as the innings wore on and India kept losing wickets.

Was I tense? I was asked by just about everyone as I kept unusually quiet (I was told) and went out for a smoke too many (I was told again). Don’t know; I am a professional, I am paid to work in office. And I felt I was doing just that, as Sachin and his mates were doing theirs — they were paid to play, and they were playing. Nothing wrong in the approach. You get dropped once, twice, four times, get a grip and focus on the next delivery. Things happen. Bad things happen just as regularly. The best bet is to keep your chin up and take fresh guard. Both in life and at work.

I knew it, as did Sachin. We took fresh guard each time there was a calamity, and calamities there were aplenty, dear reader, as Pakistan tightened the noose around Indian batsmen.

As many readers of this column would know by now, I really don’t fancy a dinner with Sachin, to put it mildly. But on Wednesday, as the evening turned night, I looked up at the man. Yes, he was struggling. But he would still nudge the ball here and there without a grudge.

Flashes of another Tendulkar innings came to mind. I don’t remember the year (statistics bore me) but it was Sharjah against the Aussies. A sudden dust storm had kicked up in the desert and everyone — the Aussies, the umpires, most people in the crowd, Sachin’s partner – were burying their face to keep the dust out of their eyes. And there stood Tendulkar, head slightly slanted up, looking skyward, eyeing the storm; almost daring it.

It soon got over, the match got on, and Sachin scored a century. I don’t remember who won (I guess India if I put a little stress on my mind, which I usually tend not to do because I often don’t trust my memory). But that’s mere statistic. They don’t matter. It was image of Sachin that stayed on in my mind, as it was the image of him on Wednesday night that will stay on for a long time to come.

By the time my work got over, four Pakistanis were back in the hut, and there requests to lay a bet. “It’s four down, after all.” No way. I knew I was going to win. I had seen it in my heart. And I knew Dhoni’s men were going to win. I saw it in Dhoni’s steely, determined eyes.

I sat in front of the telly in office, even as it thinned out. I sat there till Afridi was caught out. Then I left. ”Team aise hi nehin jeet-ti hai; jitana padta hai,” I said. And left for home to see the last bit of it with my wife. I don’t usually associate the plural sense when the Indian team plays. But as Misbah-ul-Haq kept missing the big shot one after the other and Zaheer gave him the glare in the final over, before he holed out on the penultimate ball, for once I felt WE had won.

And I am not dramatising, check the weather map. It started pouring again in Dhaka.

Pining for Pujo

Durga Puja has begun, I am told. Where is it? Want to grow young again, enjoy the pujo, and the pandals, in new clothes. Show off the new buys, brag about the new shoes... Life was simple. Or was it :)

first Eid in Dhaka. As McD's says: Yum loving it

Saw another face of Dhaka today. Sort of dusky amid throbbing life -- everyone's out in droves, as are the lights. Out.

Who would ever have thought Star Kebab Restaurant on Dhanmondi Road # 1 would be closed on a Saturday evening? The place that could well advertise itself as the eatery that never sleeps! (And one whose rolls left Subject here with a ugh tummy, and a tale to tell).
And those restaurants near Rifles Square? Switched off for Eid, buddy, all of them.

You go, grab your grub at a relative's place; that was the motif of the city today.
Needs sort of getting used to, especially after weeks of dhingchak during Ramzan. Sobriety, after all is, part of human nature. Loved it. Need to now sit back and reflect.

On Bangabandhu: My first piece after relocating to Dhaka

All of 31, it was barely days after he was promoted as a senior photographer with the daily ‘Dainik Bangla’. Life could not have been smoother for Babu Ansari.
It was August 15, 1975, and monsoon was in the air in Dhaka. Ansari had just kicked his motorcycle to head for the day’s first assignment -- Dhaka University, where Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was to be present.

It was that split second before a motorcycle guns to a start that Ansari got the shell-shocking news: the Father of the Nation had been assassinated. He did not know what to do. His wife rushed out, and when told about the killings at the house on Dhamondi road number 32, asked in naivete: “So Begum Mujib is widowed now?”
Ansari told her about the news of the assassination and the coup.
Like others in the still-nascent nation-state of Bangladesh, the news took time to sink in.

Ansari, meanwhile, gunned his bike towards his office.
Cut ahead to 2010, he told The Independent on the eve of the National Mourning Day: “I heard in office that our chief photographer, Golam Mowlah, had gone to Bangabandhu’s house after the assassination and got the photos. He came in, soon, and narrated the scene: bullet-ridden body of Bangabandhu; his wife and son Russell lay close to each other; Sheikh Mujib’s brother was shot halfway into the bathroom; Sheikh Jamal’s bullet-ridden body lay close to a car -- he must have been about to head out somewhere…”

Now 66, Ansari’s voice cracks just that slightly over the phone, recalling the horror of August of 1975. But the seasoned photo-journalist in him soon gets the focus back. “Mowlah had taken all these photographs; there were two or three frames at least of each. From different angles.”

Soon, he said, two Armymen came to the daily’s office. “They were armed; their eyes were bloodshot -- they did not look human from any angle,” he recalled. “They wanted the photographs. Mowlah said he was too devastated and exhausted and asked me to go up to our third-floor dark room to develop the prints.”

Neither Mowlah nor Ansari could fathom what the Armymen were after.

“I was a little surprised when they followed me into the darkroom, but I did not say anything. They jumped up when I closed the door. But I had to explain patiently that we could not let light enter the room.
“As I readied the chemicals for the film, I switched off the light, and they flinched again. They wanted the light switched back on -- this time I realised the feeling off the barrel of a gun on my back.

His pulse racing ahead, Ansari told them as patiently as he could that I could not work with the lights on. “It took time to develop films those days -- and they wanted to switch on the light even before I was done. After I switched on the red light in the darkroom, they counted the films. I showed them the exposed copies and then gave them some prints.”

Intuition told him not everything was going all right. “I tried to hide a few films; I didn’t want to hand everything over to them. But they counted the exposed copies and the prints and asked me about the mismatch. I felt the gun barrel again.
“There was little I could do but hand them everything. They counted everything several times and took away everything with them -- negatives, positives, wastage… everything.”

Thirty-five years on, it still rankles Ansari that he could not save the films for posterity. “I regret till this day that I wasn’t able to preserve even one photograph. I have not talked about these issues, about the films of Bangabandhu’s assassination, because I do not want to sound supercilious about what I did -- I did what any photographer, any journalist, any nationalist, any humanist would have done. And I want people to know how the fate of those films.”
Asked about Golam Mowlah’s reaction when told that his films were taken away, he said “He was too shocked, disheartened and exhausted to react.”
He died three years later.
What survives is a colleague’s version of truth; one that no bullet can expose hollow.

(PUBLISHED IN 'THE INDEPENDENT', DHAKA: AUGUST 15, 2010

Write back after being left out

Okay, long time no write.
So, on the second day of the new year as per my calendar (and yours), I am back.
Yup, same day as you or I see (or don’t see -- depends on the state of fogginess outside. No, not because of still-lingering hangover, but the ‘thick blanket of fog enveloping the skyline’, as weather reporters love to put it.)
Yes, the very same day fog has been playing truant with visibility and trains (again, colliding with fellow train at Kanpur; Gorakhdham Express hit a “stationary” Prayagraj Express).

Yes, I am a day late, but here’s my wishlist for 2010. You keep your rear side on the chair and your hands off the ESCAPE key, and read on:

1. I shall not lie and say I am not lying.

2. I shall not tell a reporter that he’s a lousy writer, and a lousier reporter.

3. I shall not tell a deskie that he should quit journalism and try a call centre or airline calldesk job.

4. I shall try and cut down on the number of packs (cigarettes, I mean, so Shahid Kapur, Hrithik Roshan and all the filmi types can get their salary cheques).

5. I shall genuinely, genuinely, and honest-to-my-heart genuinely, try and reduce my dates with Bacchus.

6. I shall love all human beings and not tell them that they shouldn’t have tried to outlive the Neanderthal Age.

7. I shall even try and love all the dogs of this world (their population seemingly split between Vaishali, Ghaziabad, where I live; and Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, where I work).

8. I shall not tap-dance my way to the DELETE button on the keyboard the moment I see a mail from the HR guys (admission: I might just slow-waltz my way to it, whatever the difference is).

9. I shall try and do an honest day’s work every day (but, maybe, for the Sundays, when wife dear expects more out of human specimens in a day than is humanly possible in a week).

10. I shall try and keep this blog a little less spaced-out than six months, when I last wrote on it, as I just saw while logging in.

That’s it. Goodbye and good day. Now hit the ESCAPE key