Big B in Kolkata and Jyoti Basu...

The following is an extract from Amitabh Bachchan's blog - a post in which he wrote about his latest visit to Kolkata. At the very end I have appended my comment on this post. Its worth a read. :-)

*************************************************************************************

Posted on: January 16, 2010 - 8:40 pm

The Sonar Bangla Hotel, Kolkata


Kolkata … lived up to all that I had written about and all that one has always expected from it … passion and love and excitement .. driven to a level where it is difficult to assess how year after year, this attitude never wanes. From the roar at the airport to the roar at the Hotel to the roar at the function, Kolkata just refuses to change. God bless all that constitute this warmth !!

...

Lesson, crowds and excitement over I travel to the AMRI Hospital to visit an ailing Jyoti Basu ex Chief Minister of Bengal and one that remained in that position for a record 23 years !! An amazing achievement, Jyoti Basu, a Communist and leader of the CPM, the Communist Part of India, has been a towering personality in Indian politics. Today he lies critically ill in an ICU battling against several ailments that put him on life support systems. At 96 he has lived a strong and firm life. Firm in his commitment to his ideals and beliefs.

Large crowds and media keep a constant vigil on the Hospital premises and I spend time with immediate family and other important personalities of the region. Members from the polit bureau, members of parliament, ex speaker of the Parliament, Somnath Chatterjee, ex Chief Minister of Bengal and brilliant legal luminary and diplomat Siddharth Shankar Ray, Prakash Karat leading party member and his charming wife Brinda Karat !!

I am delighted to meet Brinda because she is part of the nostalgia of Kolkata and indeed of Delhi University during the years I studied there. Brinda Das she was, Miss Miranda House, the prominent ladies college in the campus. Her elder sister Juni Das also from Miranda and a colleague in the Miranda House annual play ‘The Rape of the Belt’ which I enacted way back in 1961-62, much to the envy of other class and university mates because the girls college was a major attraction for the boys, and we Kenneth Maharaj Singh, Anwar Abbas and yours truly were the only ones allowed to actually enter the hallowed portals of Miranda !! Kenneth and Anwar were the other two men roles in the play.

Juni Das, from Kolkata then met up with us when we did theater under the Amateurs here in this city and played many an important role in several plays we did together. Later in a couple of years, we were joined by Brinda who also was a most accomplished artist and performer on stage. After Kolkata I think she went for further studies to England, met her husband and joined the Communist Party of India and is now in Parliament. Juni, we sadly lost some years ago in a hospital in Mumbai, very suddenly. I had been to visit her as she lay in the ICU. Her vibrant and joyful demeanor now almost lost and still. It was a sad sight to see someone go away so young.

As we sat in the hospital room in Kolkata tonight, Brinda talked of those days we had all spent, of her great companion ship in Parliament with Jaya and the excitement they both shared in the various debates they took part in. Time passes and leaves behind words thoughts acts and memories, never to be lived again. The location is the same, the situations become different. The people are the same, but their vocations change. The vibrations are similar, but they touch different chords.

Life - you beauty !!!

Amitabh Bachchan





*************************************************************************************

Rajiv Chatterjee says:
January 18, 2010 at 12:55 pm

Dear Mr. Bachchan,

It was great to see you come to Kolkata again. Its been a while :-) Watched your interview on STAR ANANDA with interest. Loved it,of course! Incidentally, in your post you have written that Jyoti Basu was CM of Bengal for …”27 years…”. Here, I would like to humbly correct you: he was CM for 23 and a-half-years (from June 1977 to Nov 2000).
I do this knowing how much you value exactness and perfection.
It would be great if you reply,actually! :-)

Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
Rajiv Chatterjee, Kolkata.