It was around 11 at night.We were coming back to hostel and after a sumptuous dinner at Karims we all were in high spirits.Suddenly we heard a lady screaming at the top of her voice.We slowed down the car only to see an young lady riding an Activa shouting at us and asking us to stop the car.She was accusing us of dropping a bottle on the road!! I was so sure of not having done any such thing that I asked her to shut up and get going.But soon after we realized that one of our friends has really dropped a thing.And on an highway it really can be dangerous considering the number of two wheelers plying.She was only trying to make that point.After that we were prompt enough to slow down,accept our mistake and say sorry.But the point here is that the young lady was right.And while few other women riding alone at the middle of night would dare to confront six youngsters,this lady was gutsy enough to come up and make us realize our mistake.This really was heartening to see and a pleasant change from what I have seen in Kolkata a few days back.

The Kolkata incident :

It was a day after Aila had hit Kolkata.Other than the usual flooding of roads hundreds of trees were uprooted,power cables snapped and a large part of the city were left in the dark .The next day I went to Birati.While on my way back my bus stopped near Kakurgachi.I peeped outside to see around 15-20 people blocking the road.They were demanding quick retrieval of power to their homes.Valid demand! We waited a while hoping they would move away and let us go.An ambulance got stuck and they wouldn't even let that go.The ambulance driver tried to plead with them but he was literally manhandled as a few hundreds looked on.And the best thing the hundreds of people,who were also stuck up in that blockade,could do,was to murmur a few slangs at those blockaders,curse the government and wait for some more time.And on top of it all,as I and my friend tried to get down to stand with the driver,some tried to dissuade us advising against getting into such things!!Anyways,we got down and though we thought of talking to the blockaders,in the end we decided against it.Because after what happened to the driver we knew that nobody is going to come to our aid in case some untoward incident occur.As we started walking towards Ultadanga,I was left wondering over a few things.

Firstly,when will Kolkatans get to acknowledge that there are other ways of protesting than disrupting life in the city.I mean we live with these exotic thoughts of being a cultural state full of socially aware literary genius.We boast of great educational institutes where youngsters supposedly think ahead of time.(There were also a few young IT engineers in the road blockade brigade..which we could make out from the tags of reputed software firms they were carrying----they could be from one of those institutes).And the best you can come up with after you are left with no electricity for about 18 hours due to a natural calamity is to harass your fellow citizens.I might not be intelligent enough but I really fail to find any progressive thoughts here at least.Nor does it testify to the high IQ level that we boast of.Since,CESC being a profit making organization they would want to restore power as fast as possible to minimize losses.Its like when you have got nothing better to do you can always disrupt social life and it will give you a sense of achievement.People associate Bengal with strikes and blockades.As far as I am concerned it's a social stigma that we need to get rid off(though I don't see that happening in near future)

The next thing is the tremendous patience showed by the people who were stuck.It was almost 11 at night..and people traveling to far off places were really getting late.And still they would sit still and blame god & the government for every goddamn problem they face.I understand that you donot want to be the first person.But when somebody is being the first you should at least have the balls to stand beside him/her.And if you can't even muster that much courage,stop blaming others for your woes, because you deserve it and probably much more.

We need to understand that Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose is past,Rabindranath Tagore is past,Satyajit Roy is past..even Sourav Ganguly is past.These are our few prized possessions.But on this present date,we have nothing to show for as a common bunch of people sharing the common mother tongue.One of our senior professors here once said that'in Bengal,if you see the cover page of Das Capital you become half-Marxist,and if you read the introductory page then you are full Marxist'.It pains for me to hear such things,it hurts when you get to hear such things about your fellow citizens.Its high time that we try to get a bit more knowledgeable,a bit more forthcoming and act in a way a civilized society demands