A tribute to Jyoti Basu

It is cold day today. I was really cold when I stepped out of my bed. But I didn’t know that this day would bring such a pain to heart.
I was on the phone chattering with my friends and mom was watching the news. It was about 12 pm. suddenly mom came to me with blank eyes and told “Jyoti Basu is no more…”
I turned my eyes to the TV screen and the headlines were enough shocking for me.
My friend asked from the other side “What happened?”
“Jyoti Babu has died…just now”
“Are you kidding? He he…”
“Watch the news idiot”
“What the hell. Wait, I’ll call ya later”
She cut the phone.
I and mom stayed stick to the TV, half-sad, half-feelingless.

That time I finally came to know how I much I idealized this political legend of India and West Bengal.
I have never said anything about politics before as I always kept it apart from my personal life. But it was never apart actually. My whole room is full of posters of Che Guevara along with my favorite bands.
I was born in a political family. Every person in my family is attached with politics. We are communists. And thus I never learned to avoid or hate politics. I learned that it runs a country, it produces the freedom movement. No man can be non-political in a free democratic country. We all are part of it. Some avoids, some takes part and some leads.
Never blame a politician. Blame yourself and fellow people. Because you the people has chosen him to run the country. It is easy to say politics is dirt, but it is hard to come forward and clean it. Yes, remember ‘Rang De Basanti’.

Apart from my speeches, lets come to the point.

Jyoti Basu was a political legend. He was the leader of the communist movement after freedom of India. Jyoti Basu was the son of a wealthy doctor. He went to London to study law. He was motivated there by his professor and writer Rajani Pam Dutta.
When he came back in India, freedom movement was on. He left his bright career of barrister and entered the movement. He was in Marxist party even when it was banned in India. He was the first chief minister of WB after the end of Congress era here. Jyoti Basu was the only one Bengali politician who was to be the prime minister of India, Congress supported him, but he backed off as his party opposed the decision of him becoming the PM. He was elected the CM of West Bengal over 5 times. He never worshipped the power and the thorn. This man was always the people’s man.
Jyoti Basu was the first person to introduce land revision and give lands to farmers and he also started non-paying governmental schooling system. He always told that politics was above the barriers of religions. He was a true communist who believed in Humanism. He served the society for his whole lifetime and even after death, his eyes and body were donated. He gave his everything for the sake of the society. Every leader of every political party respected him and took advice from him whenever needed.
But his personal life was pretty much sad. His first wife died. They had no children. He married again after 6 yrs and had a daughter. She died soon in few days because of illness. Then he had a son who later in life, didn’t share hearty relationship with him.
He was never a victim of any scandal or something bad. He fought for the last day of his life. He was told to be the leader of working class people. The people of west Bengal are greatly moved because of such a loss of this country. May his soul rest in peace.

And, if you don’t know about this person, or just feel a little bit of respect for him, just take a look at the news tonight. He was a man of morals. He met Nelson Mandela, Fiedel Castro etc. He had great communication with Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. He was someone who brought Amitav Bacchan to Kolkata to see him in the Hosp.

Thank you for reading.



With Castro. ^