Tuition Time

"Chhele ta du to letter peyechhe (My son has got letter marks, 80%, in two subjects)," the agarbatti-wala told me in a cramped compartment of the usual 3.01 Dn Bongaon local today. Yesterday, results of Madhyamik Pariksha (secondary exam) were out and this incense sticks-seller was taking pride for obvious reasons. But he was wary also. For his son's Plus Two private tuition, he has already talked to four teachers of the school the boy is studying. And, the amount they are charging is beyond the man's financial reach. Now, he is thinking whether to take loan from their co-operative society (Rs 250 interest on a loan of Rs 10,000) or stop his son's education.

Problems aplenty. Esteemed teachers of government schools concentrate on offering private tuition than taking classes much like the doctors going for private practice during hospital hours! Education system, like health, should be on priority list of any government if the state wants to be on the progress path. Can we expect our HRD minister will do something striking like the chief minister in overhauling the system? Some years ago when the state government decided to ban private tuition by schoolteachers, there was an never-seen-before protests from most of them under the umbrella organisation, Left-backed ABTA. And, the party — synonymous with the Left Front government — called a press conference to clarify that such a rule would not be implemented and the party leaders would talk to the minister concerned. What followed next was nothing but a firm rebuke of the minister and withdrawal of the proposed rule.

Alternative source of income for thousands of teachers was thus secured at the expense of parents' pockets. More importantly, the teachers would not take classes seriously as they know the same student — who is also bound to be inattentive in the class — would come up to hims that very evening and take notes for better results. So, who has gained in the process? No one except the party, and teachers owing allegiance to them! For the government, teachers are a huge force not only to conduct polls but also to inject values (read, party ideology) in the tender brains.

Last but not the least: the agarbatti-walla still hopes that the new government would help his son and others like him in higher studies. Let's wait whether Mamata — who recently promised to dole out funds for meritorious students of economically backward classes — can fulfil his dream.

Facebook Feedback # 1

[One Facebook post has tempted me to comment and counter-comment. I think these conversation is historically important, hence i would like to make a copy-paste file of this with important comments from my friends in this blog only. And this was almost the same time my last blog was published on the same topic. More relevant comments on the FB post will be added to the comments section of this blog also]

Anjishnu Bandyopadhyay: This is what we wanted...PORIBARTAN.... Director of Bangur Institute of Neuro Sciences suspended for argueing with our dear CM...for protesting against the flock of reporters accompanying the CM, and disturbing the hospital complex.
Think of the "poor" patients who were supposed to be operated on by the suspended doctor today.

Bibaswan Banerjee: This is bound to happen if a fascist and irrational person is in power........

Aranya Sen: Gone will be the days of democracy and freedom of speech! Voice something against the ruling party, and face the wrath! Are the days of 70s coming back?

Bibaswan: but unfortunately it is our generation that have voted for them.....without realizing the direction of the "paribartan"......

Shailesh Kolekar: this is bad ...

Anjishnu: fortunate for the Director...the CM didn't repeat her acts of slapping and smearing black paints on the faces of Govt officials.

Bibaswan: Wait a bit....she will do that soon..........i amsure!

Abhilash Nair: dada, seesm u dont like didi 2 much :)

Sandipi Mukherjee: ki r kora jabe.. ??

Subhen Kar: There is nothing called a poor patient in this country you cannot be poor and a patient at the same time. Hence it is justified.

Supratim Pal: what the CM did (suspending BINP director) y'day is not supportable, so is the functioning and deterioration of health services in the 34 glorious years of Left rule. if her surprise visits yield minimum results in improving health services in govt hospitals, real poor will bless her, not upper-middle class poor like us! Bibaswan, most of us (voters) had experienced TINA factor all these years... we were not in heaven either Aranya... giving a chance to another party for 5 years will not pull us down to another hell, we hope. change is the most constant factor we seemed to have forgotten in the Left rule! instead of just visiting and taking superb pix of kerala, Anjishnu, can we take some lessons from one of the most developed state? WB is the ONLY state where we have both the snow-capped hills and sun-kissed beaches... why didn't our jyoti babu develop it on kerala tourism model? when can we have a hospital like CMC vellore? why can't we tap thousands of medical tourists like TN? why should there be exam special trains to B'lore? why should our best brains go to HYD or B'lore? why doesn't a govt talk to poor farmers before acquiring their farmland just to appease certain biz groups while parched lands in purulia just lying unused? isn't it fascist and irrational Bibaswan? we don't have answers for all these... we just think it's our fate we were born in 1980/81/82... but we can change our destiny... let's see.

Anjishnu: ‎1. "Surprise visits", followed by the huge crowd of reporters, are mere publicity stunts...she has to remind us tht she's our Health Minister too...there r other ways of improving healthcare, rather than harassing patients.
2. "give a chance to another party"...tht's what ppl hav done...let's see the end results.
3. "snow-capped hills and sun-kissed beaches"...wait for these to be converted to Switzerland and Goa, as per the election manifesto...hope Switzerland doesn't become part of a new state called Gorkhaland.
4. Its not feasible to appease all farmers, more so, if this small % of farmers r backed by opposition. There won't b any industry in the state then. The compesation was pertty good.
5. There r lots of good colleges in Bengal now, the standard of them r better than lot of their counterparts in K'taka.

Abhishek Das: ‎Anjishnu, Did you know that Dr. Gorai (The BINS Director) was a man close to Alimuddin, and he misbehaved with the opponent party CM...so this was bound to happen !! Moreover....a Hospital Director is an Administrative head...& he is not the main surgeon in a surgery team...he was called at CM's Secretariat office for a meeting, but he gave excuses....It's apt he got suspended......Press should be free and fair...that's what democracy is all about ! The press did not flock the inner sanctum of Operation Theatre but some Male wards...so I don't find any wrong in this....

Supratim: ‎1. not a single reporter or the CM "harassed" any of the patients. wherever the CM goes, media follows... it's a norm not only in bengal... but across the world the press follows heads of states. we did not have to follow any CM to hospital wards in the past few years, as he preferred to sip black tea at Nandan amid sycophant intellectuals than visit patients! weird!!!! 2. gorkhaland problem was made serious by jyoti basu... and the onus of solution will be someone else! great... we will see how that unfolds... how many past CMs wanted to tap tourism in the hills? or the beaches? compare any WBTDC hotels with other state tourism resorts... you guys will get the results... ‎3. why don't you guys ask pro-poor Left leaders why did they go for lock-out in the jute mills? who stopped industrialisation? why do we still see CITU stops work at Haldia petrochem (their flagship pro-industry example) frequently? again, i reiterate, why can't there be industrialisation in dry arid lands of Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore than in fertile Hooghly, Burdwan and East Midnapore? people in purulia need industry more than anything, as they have only 3 months of agricultural production unlike 12-month farm produce in Singur and its adjoining areas... small % of farmers are ALSO farmers... if someone takes away my laptop, keyboard, cellphone... my means of livelihood... how can i survive? if u take away their land, how can they survive? how many times did the ex-CM talk to the land-losers? or the prospective land-losers before distributing cheques in sept 2006 in singur? how many hearings were done in Singur or in Nandigram? the govt just cannot send a notice via East Midnapore DM and start acquiring land in Nandigram... y'day the NAC cleared compensation six times the present value of land... why can't be done six years ago? land acquisition process would have been smoother then... Singur and Nandigram agitation made policy-makers in Delhi to think also... mamata was never anti-industry but pro-farmers... we know industry cannot come up in the sky... why didn't the Left create a land bank then like what Mamata did soon after became railway minister in 2009... the under-construction railway project and the pace of it in Dankuni is what commuters (and voters) see everyday... what compensation was given to land-losers in rajarhat where a flat now costs more than a 2-bed flat in LA or NYC!!

Sid Pathak: Wow...did that really happen?

Bibaswan: ‎Supratim, the problem is our very own attitude of blaming the past......however we must focus on criticizing the ruling team rather than the party who had already been kicked out!......I believe people must keep faith on TMC and hope they do at least something that would help them earn a pedigree for themselves...........however currently as a common man I feel that Mamata has this attitude of "ami i shob"........the earlier she comes out of this, the better is for the state when we will get to see the "paribartan" in the correct direction.......otherwise it will be the same old situation I am afraid!.....and she must stop making those false promises that she will change everything in 200 days and stuffs..........thats not possible.....not with the people like me and others who prefers to speak a lot and do nothing!!!!!!!!!

Anjishnu: ‎Abhishek, If "being close to Alimuddin" and so called "misbehaving" leads to such suspension, then then either you r not in proper state of mind while writing the post, or we r heading to the black days of '70s.
And read the Telegraph post, you will understand that a "Director" operates also.

Gautam Ghosh: The poor and hapless people are spending the Night on the Hospital Floors with Rats and Mice. The Superintendent is busy...The CM arrives for Inspection...she has the Moral Duty and the Right to do so, as the Defacto head of the State...how come the patients are disturbed?"?They are alighted rather, for the visit of the Angel...Do not talk like a demon ...see yourself in the Mirror , you must have lost youir Human Values and senses to speak such Rot..

Supratim: Anjishnu, just a passing comment: as Bibaswan said we shud not go back to past... but i can't but differ on this "black days" point. i won't go into detailed opinion now, but maybe in my next blog. :-)

Bibaswan: ‎Supratim, I believe you won't mind a few comments from an old friend........Your blogs are exceptinally good in terms of thoughts and composure. But somehow I never see an unbiased view. I believe it is the responsibilty of us to put forward a true and unbiased point and let the people decide.......I know that the state was definitely in dismay during the left front rule......my point is about TMC as an alternative and Mamata as the CM.............are they by any means a better alternative?.........This needs to be seen......whether Mamata is actually capable of doing something constructive...........This Bangur case defintely has a lot more to what has been published.......

Arindam Das: I agree with Supratim. To all Left Sympathizers... plz shut up your mouth ... else next time figure won't be 60 odd ... it will be single digit only :))

Sid: wow...just read the article...I am afraid of Bengal's future...

Sohan Banerjee: Alu.... please dont mind ... but u r politically biased .... people like u kept left in power for so long .... of course they were on ur opposite side

Supratim: ‎Bibaswan, why should i mind? FB and blogs are open space... and thoughts should be shared... thatz why we all participated in this comment thread... anyway, let me put one thing first: from the core of my heart, i am a communist in its true sense; not like jyoti basu who couldn't resist black label every evening or our ex-CM buddha whose daily dose was, as i said earlier, black tea at nandan with sycophants. all leaders have their own way of doing things... tell me one thing is mamata's politics much different what communism, more particularly marxism, is all about? if you look into it, his every step resonates communist manifesto of 1848. i hope everyone of us have read it thoroughly esp since we grew up in a communist-ruled state. our problem with mamata is simple: simplicity, impulsive, rough compared to suave, complex, show-off etc etc of other leaders. many of us may not know how tech-savvy she is, but she won't show it off. she won't flaunt a blackberry or ride a sedan! her politics is like that. we, typical educated bengali middle class, may not find a mirror reflection in her, but millions of marginalised people do get that. as i said in this thread earlier, we (voters in bengal) were suffering from TINA factor for years... There Is No Alternative (TINA)... opposition was made lame-duck and i think that's the best jyoti babu could do during his rule in bengal. yes! it is always an achievement for any democratically elected head of a state to wipe out opposition... and mr basu did that with sending a pipe-smoking dhoti-clad birbhum brahmin to delhi (who never contested an election before this UPA govt) and subtly dividing the congress in bengal in various factions. look at mamata's team now: an MLA who created the rift in bengal congress is now back to TMC, an ex-mayor who once projected her in 1984 elections as a mentor is now her cabinet minister! examples are galore... what she did was to gel the anti-left forces together like what mr basu did in the "dark days of 70s"... lastly, are we ready to give mamata 34 years? of course NOT... we want results, isn't it? she only took her oath last friday... just over a week.. isn't too early to judge her whether she is better or worse? value judgement comes only after she starts doing something... what she is doing now is a bit theatrical (hence my FB posts are 'daily dose of didi drama' accompanying the blog)... she is best in doing so, it's her way of functioning... let's see whether she can change the situation... and Arindam, erokom bolis na. u never know what might happen in another 5 years. erokom bolei kintu oi dhoti-panjabi pora lok ta nije here dol k dubiyechhe. :)

Sohan: friends ..... my educated friends ..... please dont go with d political stunts or advertisement politics ..... I still think from a very nutral pt of view that Mamata has not won..... but left has lost...... I am sure that Mamata will become a danger for democracy soon .... and the sold out Anandabazar will try to cover her back ...... but belive me .... I wish that future proves me wrong

Bibaswan: ‎Supratim, Hyan..........bujhlam tor point ta.......r amio bar bar etai bolchi je dakha jak kichu korte pare kina...........kintu somehow akta sadharon manush hishebe kichutei hisheb ta melate parchi na......actually communism, marxism....eshob amar kache anek boro boro kotha........CPM actually sudhu naam ei oi 2 to follow korte.....kintu oi mamata r karjo kolaap take kichutei bhorsha korte parchi na..........eta jamon narendrapur e paritosh da akbar history te ami ektu beshi number peye jete amake ghor e deke jera korechilo ami tukechi kina..........seirokom i arki!!!!!!

Arindam Das: ‎Supratim, I have made a comment because these ppl found flaws in a govt where are not even in 34 days and couldn't find in them who were in power for 34 years...

Bibaswan: ‎@ Arindam : actually I think we, the people of our generation only started to understand politics lately, in a proper way, studied about it, gathered the intelligence to interpret it just lately..maybe in the past 5 yrs...........and since...

@Supratim : arekta jinis hocche eta je left der akebare vanish hoye jawatao jathesto khotikarok......karon left ache bolei India ajo recession e mukh thubre poreni..........seta mana uchit.........ei desh tar abostha dekhchi to........"daan" er jere jerbaar hoye gache akebaare............serokom abostha na hoy........setai bhoy..........

Arindam: ‎@bibaswan correct and we should wait watch & see rather than jumping to a conclusion so early it's premature and childish too......

Supratim: Bibaswan, ami koekdin agei FB te ekta link share korechhilam... "why the left should not vanish"... saba naqvi er lekha... besh bhalo http://outlookindia.com/article.aspx?271911

Healthy Signs

People’s hope for better health services punched with an altercation with the chief minister led to the suspension of the director of Bangur Institute of Neurosciences and Psychiatry yesterday. This is a superficial fact. What lies beneath is an ICU-ridden management in government hospitals with little facilities for the masses. Here, valuable equipment are hardly used and commissioned ones rendered defunct within weeks. The hospitals would come up with several excuses like shortage of staff, absence of trained staff in the respective departments among other reasons like frequent power cuts.

In November 2006, i had an almost similar experience at R G Kar, one of the premier medical college hospitals in Kolkata. From my friend, who was a junior doctor at the hospital then, i came to know that several ultra-modern gadgets had recently been purchased for the cardiology department of the hospital where people throng for angiogram followed by angioplasty very often. What i was surprised to know was technical staff, maybe some doctors also, were not completely trained to operate the equipment? Then, how can i depend on them for the surgery of my father, who had suffered a heart attack? No question of saving money, as it was my father’s life that had to be saved at any cost. What we did was to take him to RTIICS, a private hospital of repute set up by its more famous doctor, Devi Shetty.

Not everyone like me can think that way with the primary hindrance being money. Since childhood, my generation has grown up with the idea that the Left Front government was indeed for the poor. Yes, our family is not poor in the scale of socio-economic factors. But what about others? Can’t they expect better health service at government hospital? In early 1988, i stepped into SSKM Hospital with my parents for my surgery of tonsillitis, which was termed “septic” and called for an immediate operation. Of course that surgery didn’t happen because junior doctors went on strike the day i was supposed to be admitted and the senior surgeon didn’t want to take any “risk” for the follow-up treatment. From now-closed jute mills to hospitals, strike became the most prevailing term in the ’80s and ’90s forcing the people to think for an alternative. While youngsters migrated to other states for jobs, south India-bound trains were running over-burdened with patients.

Again, that was not the situation just a few decades ago when my grandfather had undergone a prostrate surgery at Calcutta Medical College, grandmother got fair attention of doctors at PG Hospital (now SSKM) when she had liver cirrhosis and my maternal grandfather had a pacemaker installed at PG, too. But all these were in 1970s. Why hadn’t the picture changed much in terms of addition of beds, departments, staff and doctors in these hospitals that can cater to patients from all social classes?

We don’t seek an answer from any political party, or ministers. It’s better we get the results sooner than later. When the chief minister — the most powerful democratically elected person in any Indian state — has started surprise visits to hospitals, i hope nobody like me would be turned away from the doors of a government hospital anymore.

Health Factor

My first brush with a government healthcare system in the state — apart from my birth in such a hospital in Berhampore — was probably in 1987 when i visited a dentist in Kanksa primary health centre (PHC). The PHC at Kanksa — a block in Burdwan district — caters to thousands of villagers in and around Panagarh, a military base, from Trilokchandrapur in the north to Randiha in the south. Health services seemed to be alien to these villages — some are dominated by tribals, mainly Santhals — in the late ’80s, more than 10 years after the Left came to power in Bengal.

Like sports records, are promises made only to be broken? When the Left came to power in the historic 1977 elections before i was born, didn’t they send a message of hope for the underprivileged? Healthcare is a crucial issue not only for people at large but also for any state that wants to progress. How many people took the Coromandel Express for an appointment with doctors at CMC Vellore or Apollo Hospitals Chennai in the ’80s? We may not have the exact figures but certainly the number was far less than it’s today. Why should there be a beeline for the South when we have state-run “super-speciality” hospital like the SSKM?

Whoever has ever stepped to the super-speciality hospital, as the Left had remodeled and rechristened it, would know nothing is special in patients forced to live together with cats and rats, to bribe a tout for a bed (forget free beds for the downtrodden though there are provisions), to share bed (if you manage to get one) with a diarrhea patient, to shell out the extra bucks for hygienic drinking water or even to release a body after your nearest one’s death. We have taken this for granted as our misfortune in this state. Those who can afford go to private hospitals mushroomed off the EM Bypass in the last 10 years. But a government for the poor hardly cared for them.

Cut to Panaji, Goa, January 2010. One of my friends sprained her ankle on the last day of our trek. Within half an hour after reaching our base in Panaji, we could take her to Bambolim-based Goa Medical College. Screeching to a halt in front of the emergency, i saw a person was ready with a wheel chair and stretcher — a scenario still unimaginable in state-run hospitals in Bengal. She was wheeled into the orthopaedic department where an X-Ray was done on her ankle followed by plasters etc — and all it took just over 30 minutes to complete in the oldest medical college in Asia. Even medicines were available in the hospital pharmacy. For me, it was dream. Here, we run helter-skelter for a drug prescribed by our government doctors.

Cut to SSKM, Kolkata, May 24, 2011. A surprise visit by Mamata Banerjee kept doctors on alert and patients reassured of a failing healthcare system on revamp mode. Earlier we witnessed preparations at a government hospital with disinfectants only the day before a minister’s visit. With surprise visits being the new chief minister’s modus operandi to “change” systems, can we feel the pungent smell of bleaching powder instead of surgical stench at our hospitals? And, that applies to all government hospitals, not SSKM alone that can’t cater to millions in Bengal’s remote areas.

On & Off the Field

Twenty years ago, she must have been 36. That was the first time i met her on a cloudy afternoon at a playground marked for our sporting activities — football from March to September, or before Puja vacation, and cricket after festive holidays for three/four months. As a kid of just 11 years, i touched her feet and she asked me whether that day i scored a goal or not! That inspired me a lot — obviously not to net one or two like my childhood icon Maradona or sprinter-footballer Caniggia — to tell my mother on Sunday (guardian visiting day) that a lady, Mamata Banerjee, came to our campus and asked us whether we get time to play amid our busy study schedule. My mother said that it was natural for a Union minister of state for sports and youth affairs to visit any school or college.

But what my mom thought “natural” was not at all a usual incident in our country. Never after that i doubt whether any of my Narendrapur friends has seen any such minister’s visit in the next six years we grew up there. Forget Narendrapur, a centre of excellence in itself, how many schools does a sports minister visit during his/her term? Narendrapur is a unique institution, which has a stadium besides 30-odd playgrounds for its students. I wondered — and the process is still on — why can’t there be stadiums with concrete gallery and proper seating arrangements in our Maidan like what we have in Narendrapur? Barring the Eden, rest of the club stadiums bear a shabby look in the heart of Kolkata.

Is it because of sheer government apathy towards the stadiums? Or the respective clubs never wanted to invest in upgrading infrastructure although investing millions in roping in third-grade players from third world African countries. Maybe both. That’s why we would never get an Emirates Stadium or an Old Trafford. Our new sports minister promises stadiums should only be used for sporting activities, nothing else! He seems to be on a move to wipe out some “historical blunders” done by his predecessors.

Kolkata has distinctive characteristics when it comes to utilizing stadium space. We have the second largest stadium in the world that is not solely used for football matches but athletics, musical soiree, dance performances and other cultural programmes. Its huge campus is also used to accommodate book and other fairs, including that of career and lingerie. It houses hostels for athletes, a three-star restaurant-bar for alcoholics, and became a haven for criminals under patronage of a former sports minister. Nowadays we, Bengalis, always take words of our ministers with a pinch of salt particularly when we see they talk development! I still believe our new sports minister — who is also a union leader of soot-belching taxis — would keep his words.

Reality & Myth

One breezy night and after a smart evening shower, she takes a ride in her now synonymous Santro down several roads and byroads across the Maidan, the lungs of Kolkata. Neither is she a heroine who roams about the city only after sundown nor a college girl out with her boyfriend for an evening smooch-ride. As at 56, she can only think of people who made her their queen — may not be Queen of Hearts like Princess Diana — who can take on her opponents like Elizabeth I.

Like many a western leader, our chief minister also waited at traffic lights till it was turned green for her lane — something we are not accustomed to in this part of world where hooters can give you a warning from quite a distance of a VIP’s arrival like a maharajah on an elephant so that we can clear the raj path. With eyes wide open, we, the people, were used to look at such cavalcade — no horseback procession in 21st century Kolkata but Armada-Gypsy-Amby-Amby-Gypsy-Mahindra Classic-Tata 407-turned-ambulance (this was the smallest convoy used by her predecessor) — zoom past hundreds of cars-buses-trams in morning and evening rush hours.

Now, that picturesque, and envious, scene is past. We have a chief minister who can work well past midnight — yes, she did on her first day at Writers’ — and may take a stroll along the corridors of power to find whether her colleagues are drooling or not. She can do a Haroun al-Rashid on evenings or maybe a little late after that also to fix civic problems with the mayor sitting on the backseat. Or maybe with the urban development minister in the same hatchback, she can discuss innumerable problems of a city now infamously known not for Joy, but Misery.

But i wonder whether her prying eyes did miss other nocturnal nefarious activities of the administration, especially the Men in Khaki. Can the woman in Dhanekhali stop the policemen not asking for usual bribes from each fish-laden Andhra truck that enters Kolkata through Vidyasagar Setu and take the same road that she took last Saturday evening? Being in charge of the home ministry, will she kindly ask the police not to stop vehicles at Rajabazar or Chingrighata or Ultadanga in dead of the night and harass innocent passengers in the name of security check? Had it been a real security exercise, we wouldn’t have any complaints, but how can you stop a car or matador, ask anything between Rs 5 and Rs 500, and let it go without giving a proper receipt for the payment? As we all know, even the IPS officers get a share of the booty.

When the chief minister promises “free hand” to the police for taming hooligans we should live with a slim hope that we don’t need to grease their palms. Myth of Haroun al-Rashid should turn into reality in this transitional phase of Bengal history.