Ask the cop

On the afternoon of July 21, when Mamata Banerjee spoke to the city, an amateur photographer was perched on a traffic police pedestal at the Esplanade crossing to click the homebound rallyists. It was a vantage point for the shutterbug, and also offered her shelter from the shower.

But within minutes, she found some of her subjects striding purposefully towards her. No, they weren’t objecting to being photographed.

“Didi, Sealdah ta kon dikey?” (Which way is Sealdah?) one of them asked. The traffic pedestal, after all, stood for neutrality and knowledge. While it was “Will the rally get washed off?” in the morning, the afternoon was all about finding the way to the station. Dozens stopped by for directions, the same lost-in-Calcutta look in their eyes.

There was an exception though — one man who had wandered off eastward from the Brigade Parade Grounds in search of Howrah station!

For other rallies, buses that bring in the party supporters are usually parked on Red Road or Queen’s Way. But on Thursday, they were seen quite a distance away — in a double lane on both sides of Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road. Surprisingly, men were lounging inside the buses even though you could hear Mamata in full flow on the loudspeakers. A bystander went up and asked: “Dada, aren’t you going to the meeting?” Pat came the reply: “All the others have gone. But someone has to stay back and guard the bus.”

“Er, isn’t the driver here for that?”

“It’s such a big bus. How can just one man guard it?” replied the man, a trifle irritated, and went back to the game of cards.