Rimi B. Chatterjee's Blog, page 4

Green Light

She's done it.

Mamata Banerjee is now the duly elected head of the legislature of West Bengal. Thirty four years of red rule have ended with less than a whimper.

Are we happy? It's too soon to tell, but the things she's been saying have been encouragingly unlike her usual spiel. I think we're all hoping that the rabble rousing and the use of the CPM's old weapons (strikes, bus burning, chaka jam, rail roko) for which she became notorious were just political expediency, and that Mamata knows the absurdity of protesting against herself now that she's in charge. Which leaves us to wonder what the reds will do. Will they rediscover Jyoti Basu's talent for streetside theatre, and take every opportunity to chuck spanners in the green machine? Or will they go away and lick their wounds, hopefully becoming wiser in the process? At present it looks likely that they will turn against Buddha's reformist agenda, just like the BJP turned on Atal Behari, and regress to a shadow of their former selves, good only for nuisance value come election time. Perhaps they will think that Buddha's last-ditch reform was a sign of weakness, rather than the belated realism it was intended to be. Of course, the outgoing government had a talent for looking shifty even when they were in the right: force of habit I suppose. And Mamata knew how to capitalize on that.

However, communists of any stripe are very tough people. Just look at how long they live. Perhaps we shouldn't write them off just yet.

But what does Mamata intend now? She's had disastrous advice in the past and made even worse decisions, garnering massive support for herself and then throwing it away by disappointing people. But perhaps that was all part of the learning process. She has been, by and large, a model of good sense since she won, which I suppose is an encouraging sign. Nevertheless, she will have to take some tough decisions now: the state is on the edge of chaos, and bankrupt to boot. She will have to pull some really top class ideas out of the box to save it. But I think she really, genuinely cares enough to try.

What are her resources? Curiously enough, the recent disastrous record of the government sets a low bar against which it will be easy for her to look good. But that's the danger. If she takes people's fed-up-ness for granted, she risks losing all the good she's built up. It won't be enough to rake over the past and apportion blame, however richly deserved. Revenge is likely to lose her supporters faster than anything else. She may know this, but do her followers appreciate it? How long will the post-poll violence continue? Who else must die before the scores are settled?

Even so, these fears for the future don't take anything away from the fact that democracy has at last vindicated itself in Bengal. I have never known a non-red-ruled Bengal: I came here two years after they came to power. Most of my students are younger than the previous regime. There is good and bad in that: we have no template for the way things should be now, so Mamata has a blank canvas on which to paint her dream. On the bad side, there are a lot of very hungry people out there, who've been waiting a long time to taste power. The feeding frenzy is not going to be pretty.

Let's just hope that dream doesn't turn out to be a nightmare, for her or us.

Escape

This is my review of Escape, by Manjula Padmanabhan, a post-apocalyptic sci fi story published by Picador India. It came out in the American Book Review 32(2):5, January/February 2011.

My review of Manjula Padmanabhan's Escape in the American Book Review. Click to read in larger format.

Monsters' Ball

Samit Basu will be in residence at JU Department of English Renaissance Centre on Wednesday 20 and Thursday 21 April from 2pm to 5pm. Past and present students of the university are invited to come and make monsters with him. The monsters can be drawings, descriptions, blueprints, ideas, fiction, robots, constructs, anything you want.

And here's one of my illustrations for Buro Angla.

 

Buro Angla Chapter 8 artwork by me

Pinaki De Speaking on William Blake and French Comics

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Pinaki De will speak on Thursday (7 April) at 3pm in the AV Room, Department of English, Jadavpur University, on William Blake and the illuminated book.

 

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He will also speak on Friday, 8 April on French comics and the avant garde, also at 3 in the AV Room.

All are welcome.

Pinaki De Speaking Tomorrow

Our very own Pinaki De ,   Assistant Professor in English, Uttarpara College and Visiting Fellow to the Department of English, Jadavpur University, will speak on   'The Curious Case of Headless Covers' on Friday, 1 April 2011, at 3.30 p.m.

in the Audio-Visual Room of the English Department.    All are most welcome.

Preliminary Cover for Buro Angla

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My artwork for Buro Angla

This translation will come out some time this year, probably July. The text is all done, the illustrations are in progress. This is my artwork for the cover, which will now be coloured and the cover designed by Avijit Chatterjee who did the cover of Black Light.

New Dates for IICP Workshop

Because a lot of people couldn't give five whole working days to the workshop, it has been shifted to 24, 25 and 26 March. Please do sign up.