Gray Smoke

Kolkata has been given many names like City of Palaces, City of Joy, Dying city but undoubtly the underlying theme I found was that it was a City of Survivors. I had gone to my hometown Kolkata for Vacation. I live in Bangalore and not in some foreign city like New York or London. But the eyes of a traveler is different and it was the first time I realized the fact that there is a large section of population who lives, trade, eats and dies on the street. The juxtaposes is even more daunting. I saw large mall and gleaming IT offices and right next to them there are dingy dark shacks where people made a living and also lived their lives in the very same hut. On Christmas eve the whole Park Street was lit like Christmas tree with wealthy queuing outside Flurries, Peter cat and the other usual haunt at 12 past midnight, but at the same time you found that there were hordes of children begging on the street in the cold. While walking on the streets, I saw a mansion with BMW parked in it but right outside was a family of 12 living on the street and cooking lunch on a make shift fire (fire made out of paper and lunch was of fish). The upwardly mobile middle class thronged the Salt Lake's City Center Mall and South City Mall in tens of thousands. The night life compared to Bangalore was 'happening', to say the least with Clubs and bars filled up well past midnight. Music runs in the blood of Kolkata and the musician or music groups I heard were mind blowing, dedicated to their art and surviving with passion. Over and over again I saw a city that was hell bent on surviving all odds. The best example of a survivor my old school principal who was back after having survived a rare form of Blood Cancer. I also felt that this was a city I could not recognize any more. While the rest of the country was on a march against corruption, in Kolkata there was some feeble attempt at a candle march. Had corruption seeped into the life of the manush (common man), so much that he took corruption for granted and he did not know how to survive without it. And this brings me to Mamta Banerjee. Mamta is politically savvy, with a good pulse of her constituency and makes sure her stand is with the manush (common man). She has voiced her opinion against petrol price rise, water sharing, medical exam and anything else the center government has set. However she has been quite on Corruption even though she as clean an image as any politician can have. As a matter of fact she voted against the inept government bill in Rajya as it would mean LOKAYUKT in the state also. Does this mean that her constituency does not want Anti-corruption drive and who is she trying to protect. The same goes for the industry. She has come to power on the plank of anti-industry movement. But as a CM she has to work with everyone to make WB a success. However her actions against the Marwari investor directors of AMRI (fire case) and not against the Bengali Bengali Chairman, MD and Government nominee, has made things sour between the dominant industrial community in Kolkata. Is Mamta doing this from personal or political vendetta or is she doing because that is the will of her constituency. I am sure in the AMRI case the truth is a bit of all the above. One of the directors of AMRI is Todi who was a Jyoti Basu's blue eyed boy and hence the political vendetta is understandable. But I suspect that a large part of the manush (common man) is holding the Marwaris responsible for the problems Kolkata is facing (much like the Jews in Europe in the 1940). One of fallouts I heard was that one was now willing to be in board of the accident board or charitable trust boards of hospitals. The other fall out has been that many investments that were supposed to come to Kolkata has been now put on hold and even the more established local players have started making alternative plans to move. Bengal has an advantage of cheap human capital but to tap this human capital you need entrepreneurs willing to take risk. With Mamta's anger equating industrialist to murders and terrorist very few will want to put their money and time into Mamta hand. Marwari community in Kolkata will survive and so will the city. The hundred of street dwellers will survive, the musicians, the artists will survive in the city, the vendors, the traders and malls will survive so will the communist and Mamta Banerjee. However I do not see Mamta dream of making Kolkata, a hub like London, surviving. I do not see the survival of dreams of a good life to the millions of educated middle class bengalis and who will eventually migrate to greener pastures. I do not see my hidden dreams of me ever going back to Kolkata for good ever surviving.