Boycotting Red in West Bengal

There once lived a smarty who said,
"We must boycott everything red.
I strongly advise,
Against CPM ties,
Be careful, dear folks, who you wed."

"So henceforth we Bongs, won't have red.
Even colour of blood, will instead
Be re-dyed bright blue
(None other will do)
For you see, we are doubtless purebred!"

"Neither saree, nor sindoor, nor bangle
Should be red -- it's the CPM angle.
The colour we'll rout,
From our palette, no doubt,
It is Marxist -- we must disentangle"

India Today 16/04/2012: West Bengal - State food supplies minister Jyotipriyo Mallick issued a diktat ordering his party members to socially boycott the CPM in Bengal. The startling remarks came as Mallick, at a public rally in Kolkata's adjoining North 24-Parganas' Habra area, asked Trinamool members not to have marital ties with the family members of any CPM leader or activist. Get the story here

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/socially-boycott-cpm-in-bengal-appeals-trinamool-minister/1/184750.html

Why Sending Toons via Mail is Dangerous

In Bengal, you may land in jail
If caught sending toons via mail.
There's a buzz and a rumour,
That our leaders lack humour --
They'll book you for cyber-crime - #fail
              ~***~

India Today 15/04/2012: The arrest of professor Ambikesh Mahapatra for having forwarded a cartoon about West Bengal CM Mamata Bannerjee has legal experts concerned about the use of Internet laws by the government to suppress free speech.Get the story here

Power to the people!

When you're baking, in heat, like a bun,
A power cut's surely no fun.
I think powers that be
Will finally see
Why we must harness power of the sun!

Well, the last few days have been terrible in Kolkata, weather-wise. A sweltering temperature of 40/41degrees, high humidity and frequent bouts of power failure (coupled with Dada's ouster as captain of the KKR) - the lethal combination is seeping the life force out of Kolkatans. The power production is failing miserably to keep up with demand. A few days back, all the units of one big supplier tripped in unison, leaving citizens power-less for hours on end. Since then, with an average of 4-5 instances of power cuts per day, the dreaded word "loadshedding" is back with a vengeance in our day-to-day conversations.Maybe the time has come to focus on solar emergy, like never before. Well some good news in that direction here. If lights come, can fans be far behind? One hopes...