Jyoti Basu's passing
Some years back I was travelling by train from Dum Dum along with a friend to visit his home at Barrackpur. On board the electric train, we walked through and found a nearly empty compartment and parked ourselves there. After some time we noticed that two gentlemen in white dhoti-kurta were standing and talking to another seated gentleman also in white, who had his back to us. Rolling along, we were engrossed in our gup-shup. As we reached Barrackpur we were a bit taken aback by slogans at the station. We got up to get down from the same door those three gentle had also lined up to disembark. To our utter surprise we found that it was Jyoti Basu himself who got down from the train and was received by the local party members. He then walked along with them, crossed over the foot-bridge and walked all the way to the ground where a meeting had been arranged. Our politicians may think I am making up this story, as they would never think of travelling, other than by a big Pajero and an entourage of police and administration along with, of course, many of their chamchas.
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