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This week Kolkata has witnessed certain pieces of high drama that apparently do not happen to touch our everyday lives but are disturbing nevertheless. A middle class housewife attempted to immolate herself at a busy street intersection by drenching herself liberally with kerosene oil. A sizable crowd had gathered to watch this scene in silent horror but nobody actually could muster the guts to step forward a save the lady.

Another lower middle class housewife was returning home with her husband at that time after having offered her homage to the Goddess Mother at the famous Kalighat Temple in South Kolkata. It was her marriage anniversary and she had gone to the Goddess Kali to pray and offer her respect in order to ensure a happy and fruitful conjugal life.

She happened to be one of the crowd that had gathered near the Rashbehari Crossing to watch the distracted lady burn herself to death. Her opportunity arrived when the box of matches in the hands of the suicidal lady fell to the ground in the pool of kerosene. She rushed forward to grab the lady about to commit self-immolation and dragged her away from imminent death.

The savior lady even went to the police station to give her statement and offer her solace to the woman she had just saved from the jaws of a horrendous death in public. Her act would be remembered by us because she had saved us from yet another ignominy, another scandal that we the citizens of Kolkata can pass our days and ways in gay abandon while our fellow sufferers rot in their private hells of silent agony.

She has set a rare public example of selflessness and self-effacement during a moment of intense crisis when able bodied men and women were tongue-tied and frozen in their collective act of inaction. The lady about to commit suicide was suffering from bouts of depression due to her mother’s illness and subsequent death some day earlier. Even her family members could not gauge her depths of frustration and apparent failure to relate with the daily rhythms of life that continue all around us, unnoticed and perhaps uncelebrated.

Another young boy committed suicide around the same time in Kolkata. His father is suffering from terminal illness, and he simply could not survive the impact of this news. He was an aspiring modern executive in a City office when he killed himself, and was also a musician in a Bengali Band. But his life was not destined for any material success or intangible happiness as his emotions got the better of him and destroyed him in a frenzied moment of desperate helplessness.

Can we really judge the depths of people’s frustrations and private sorrows before passing comments on their apparent lack of responsibility or acts of inanity that cause grief and trouble to others close to them? Are we competent enough to analyze the sufferings of our fellow citizens and their anxiety and hopelessness? A young man was run over in New Town the other day while returning from his boy’s school. Police officers have given statements that it was the man’s fault that he was crossing the road casually enough to invite trouble. But nobody talks about inadequate traffic safety and lack of appurtenant road facilities such as the provision of underpasses, traffic signal systems, service roads, flyovers, interchanges, rotaries etc.

The communists have again returned to power in West Bengal. This time around the allegation of electoral malpractice was not raised so much by the Opposition as the Election Commission of India had ensured free and fair polls in the state. Kolkata as such did not witness the mindless electoral tempo as restrictions on campaigning were observed in a stringent manner in the City. This should be the hallmark of a mature liberal democratic political system. People know who perform and who do not, and they accordingly cast their vote. There is no need for any additional fanfare before the election to make people aware of policies and performance.

The Election Commission of India must be congratulated for the commendable measures taken before, during and after the polls in West Bengal. Even an ordinarily volatile metropolitan city like Kolkata did not have the faintest opportunity to erupt in pre-poll or post-poll violence despite the explosive and provocative comments made by some leftist political leaders. The Rule of Law has been established firmly in the state and one hope that this newly entrenched tradition of stable political ethos continues in the City in the future as well.

The presence of Opposition politics in Kolkata in particular and West Bengal in general is limited to fanfare and more often than not ineffective slogan campaigns and long drawn out processions and demonstrations and sit-ins. One must admit that the Opposition parties have been found wanting in terms of their political resources and wisdom while the Left Front Government has been able to successfully formulate its own political rhetoric couched in the appropriate ideological idiom.

Cricket fans of Kolkata continue to be despondent at the exclusion of Saurav Gangopadhyay from the Indian national team bound for the West Indies where both test match and one day international series would be played against the Caribbean team led by Brian Lara. The probable announcement made by Sachin Tendulkar about his fitness has impeded the inclusion of Saurav Gangopadhyay further in the national squad.

East Bengal’s hopes of winning the National Football League has been dashed to the ground after the party’s series of defeats in its away matches played at Goa and Mumbai. Dissent among East Bengal players has mounted against their Belgian coach, the first foreign coach at Kolkata. The East Bengal cricket team has finally won the Kolkata First Division League. This happens to be the only trophy the club has managed to win during this season.

The Football World Cup is expected to rock the City later this year when the giants of international soccer would hold all and sundry hypnotic with their magic spell cast on football lovers around the world. Kolkata is expected to go exuberantly crazy during this tournament. People would spend sleepless nights watching football while each and every Kolkata citizen would overnight turn into soccer experts of no mean value. This is fiesta time in Kolkata and it is great fun soaking in all the youthful excitement and joy of life while knowledgeable citizens holler themselves hoarse for either Brazil or Argentina or Germany or France.

The City’s blood banks are running short of blood supply during the summer months. This is a most common trend that repeats itself each and every year. The scorching heat occasionally gets reduced to bursts of late afternoon showers and storms. But the health infrastructure of the City is currently poised at perilous crossroads due to the inadequacy of blood. The electronic media has also highlighted this problem of late. Let us hope for a speedy redress of this grave problem during this summer so that our fellow citizens may get well soon.  

May 14, 2006

Top | Kolkata Diary

The Week of May 14, 2006     
A Two-Party System is Achievable by Rajinder Puri
India's Congress Party's Divisive Fissures by Dr. Subhash Kapila  
Blunder Bush: The WMD to use to shoot One's Self in the Foot by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Lurid Drama of Proselytism after 1947 by V. Sundaram 
The Rite of Passage to the New World Order by Arvind Pandey 
Office of Profit by Usha Kakkar 
'Raw is Training 600 Baluchis in Afghanistan' : Mushahid Hussain  by MH Ahsan 
Who can get Permanent Seats in the UN Security Council? by TA Ramesh 
Let us Not Redraw the Geography by VK Joshi
Emotions and Elections by Dr. Prasenjit Maiti 
Religion Vs Reason by Humera Afridi 
Vastu Orientation and Topography by Niranjan Babu Bangalore 
Care for the Glittering Pair by Dr. Savitha Suri
A New Indian Woman? by Kusum Choppra 
Pulling the Right Strings by Neeta Lal  
Asian Development Bank : No.1 Public Enemy? by Linda Chhakchhuak
Mistaken Love : A True Story by P. Mohan Chandran
Song of the Wound(ed) by by RS Krishna Moorthy & NS Murty   
Action Plan for Sita by Sandeep Uppuluri
The Witty Side by Melvin Durai 
You are a Buffalo by Ravi Pipal  
Robots in Human Life by Ruchi Gupta
Guide to Easy Parenting by Garima Gupta 
Vastu: Directional Influences on Human Affairs A Review by VS Kalyanaraman
The Thirst for Life's Secrets by Raghvendra Singh