At Dola Roy's rally......

The bus jolted to a halt. The fat lady standing in front of me lost her balance and fell on the other co-passengers, making a few of them go down like ninepins. A volley of abuses was immediately fired at the driver.
“Ki holo ki? Eta ki dharoner driving moshai?” shouted out a dhoti-clad bhadralok.
I looked out of the window and found that all the other vehicles had also stopped. The traffic had come to a standstill. I sensed some trouble, and it didn’t take me long to realize that I was right.

At a distance I could see a huge rally heading towards us….well, I must admit that in spite of staying in a politically ‘red’ city like Kolkata for 20 long years, I never got to know the fine line that separates rallies from violent mobs, for I always felt that they were synonymous, at least when it comes to talk of Kolkata!
Kolkata’s rallies never have a dearth of attendees, maybe because our leaders rally to address the issue of removing unemployment, but only after making sure that there is enough number of unemployed youths in the city to make their rallies successful.

We all started getting down from the bus, for we knew that the rally had been organized only to disrupt the traffic and there was absolutely no hope of it getting over in the next few hours. I knew that I was in for some free entertainment. Along with a few other office-goers, I stood a bit far from the crowd, under the shade of a roadside tree, waiting for the hilarious speeches to begin. I have always loved the way in which some of these party workers try to deliver speeches with difficult Bengali words and quotations to impress the gathering, but then they end up being the butt of ridicule.

The crowd was being led my Dola Roy, one of the most vociferous critics of the Communist Government. I have been an ardent admirer of the way she shouts and hurls abuses at the state government, and had watched her in action on TV news channels. To be truthful, I was quite glad to find that she was going to address the rally.

A makeshift dais had been illegally constructed on the footpath, just beside the bird-droppings stained statue of Gandhi, while the road was chosen as a suitable place for the rally members to settle down. Dola Roy, more popularly known as Doladi, went up on the stage. A round of applause followed. There were quite a few other members of her party already present on the dais. As she went up on the stage, a few of them leaped up from their chairs and jumped down at her feet. Though I was standing at a distance, I could somehow make out a few of those MLAs. I was surprised to find our local Municipal Councilor, Mr. Bhaskar De, sitting on the floor of the overcrowded stage like a Shakespearean era groundling. After serving the communist party for nearly a decade, Mr. De had shifted his loyalties when the CPM party refused him an election ticket.

What I could gather from the whispers was that this rally was arranged to protest against the way Dola Roy had been arrested the previous night. Apparently, she had barged into a hospital on the previous night and demanded for the immediate treatment of some of her party workers who had been beaten up by police for throwing stones at public buses. But the absence of doctors at the hospital infuriated her and the incident resulted in the ransacking of Doctors’ chambers. She was arrested on grounds of abetting violence. But she complained at a press conference that the police intentionally harassed her on orders from the Communist Government…..and so the rally had been organized to protest against the Government’s attack on the opposition leaders!
The placards in the hands of the party workers also conveyed the same story. I was a little happy to have gathered these bits & pieces of information about the background that had led to the rise of the rally.

Doladi took the mike in her hand and tested it once, while we all eagerly waited for a vitriolic speech to begin.
“Bhayera o bonera (Brothers and Sisters)…..,” she started off.

I guess I need not mention here that the turn-out for the rally was simply overwhelming! It had crippled the normal flow of traffic on quite a few busy roads of Kolkata during the peak office hours, which simply meant that the news of the rally would definitely find its way to the headlines in the afternoon editions of Aajkaal.

“…..there has been a complete break-down of law and order situation in the state. We will forward our demand to the Central Government for the implementation of Article 365 in Bengal….We will not rest until our demands are met and we will voice the opinions of common people by organizing more such rallies!,” Doladi declared.

Rounds of applause continued, but suddenly there was a plop!.....a crow had decided to send her a small token of appreciation that landed right on the center of her forehead and appeared like a vijay tika. MLA Rajiv Sarkar ran up to her quickly to offer his handkerchief. Overcoming the embarrassment, Doladi continued with the speech in her usual vituperative style.

Her speech was really a blood-boiling one! ‘She knows how to incite the mob against the Government,’ I thought. ‘No wonder we have such frequent sacrifices of public transport buses, police jeeps and even fire engines!!’

Everything was going smoothly and Doladi was at her best, but suddenly there was a huge commotion in the crowd. People started running for their lives. I didn’t get to realize what went wrong, till I saw the two fighting bulls which happened to be the cause of the panic! Probably the exhorting speech of Doladi against the 'red' Communists had ended up provoking the bulls!!

The bulls ran amok, distancing themselves intermittently and then again running towards each other and clashing their horns. There was almost a stampede as men, women and children started running for cover. The bulls changed direction and went near the dais and continued fighting. By that time Doladi’s loyal party workers had deserted her. She was standing on the dais, surrounded by her two baffled body guards, who were totally indecisive of whether to shoot or not to shoot! The MLAs had taken shelter on top of some parked vehicles. I could see Bhaskar De clinging to a low branch of a tree; his dhoti had given away, but he didn’t seem to have realized it in the commotion. A few gallant policemen went forward and took a lathicharge stance but ran away when the bulls swerved towards them. My co-passengers and I, who had got down from the bus, ran back to it and kept a vigilant eye on state of affairs from the windows.

The situation was restored within half an hour, but the damage was done. The bulls had really ravaged through the rally. Slippers, placards and flags were strewn all over the place. The makeshift dais had collapsed and the card board cut-out of Doladi lay on the main road, biting the dust.

Dola Roy was whisked away in a car.
The leaderless MLAs desperately called out for their Chauffeurs who also seemed to have fled the scene. They all huddled into a taxi and got away, perhaps heading for the Writer’s building or a more secure place to protest.

Well, the rally was finally over, though in a totally unexpected way! Within a few minutes our bus started rolling on. However, the traffic-jam that had been created by the hour long drama was beyond one’s imagination. It must have taken half a day to restore normalcy. Whatever may be the aftereffects, I must say that it was a life time experience for me, and probably very few would get to witness such unforgettable chaotic events!!

Today the memories of this hilarious incident, which I witnessed on my way to school about seven years back, flashed across my mind when I was stranded in traffic jam near Bangalore Central and was reading the article titled “Take That! Pranab Mukherjee flaunts self-defence skills” on page 51 of 29th May issue of ‘The Week’ magazine. It reminded me that Kolkata has not changed much since I left the city.

The article read:
“Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee is extremely pleased with the way he defended himself against the violent mob that attacked him at the Congress office in Kolkata recently. If anyone had doubts about his ability to defend the nation, all they need to do is recall the shot of Pranab in a boxing stance when he was gheraoed. He says he sensed danger the moment he saw the mob……...
………….Pranab’s training as a soccer player came in handy. He kicked with force and used the few boxing punches he knows. It worked. The strategist in him was quick to realize that his lack of height could be used to his advantage. The punches aimed at him missed the mark and caught the taller guys. All the defence minister had to do was duck his head an inch or two.”

Surprised?! Well, all that I have to say is: ‘This happens only in Kolkata!!’