When even the gods were against Rahul in Kolkata

KOLKATA: “Oh there’s a Rahul Gandhi rally here?” asked a friend as I headed out to the Congress vice president’s first rally this election season. He could be forgiven for not knowing. On my way to the Shahid Minar rally I saw more leftover posters of Narendra Modi’s maha rally in February than new ones for Rahul who was coming to pep up an unenthusiastic party whose senior leaders were trying to duck the polls this time around. Perhaps it was just as well. Even as Congress faithful started marching through the heart of Calcutta chanting slogans like Aadhi roti khaayenge, Congress-ko layenge, the skies got menacingly dark. The roadside stalls selling gym bags and cheap salwar suits turned on the lights. By the time most people were inside the tent draped in orange green and white, it was pouring. “At least it’s covered,” said one Congress cadre as he jostled his way in. Alas, the tent was covered but no match for the fierce nor’wester storm. The rain first seeped through in a fine mist which soon turned into a downpour as much of the roof was ripped off by the 60 kmph winds. The “rally” became a sea of red and green plastic as everyone upturned their chairs and turned them into makeshift umbrellas. Fights broke out about ownership of “chair umbrellas”. [caption id=“attachment_1451295” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Chairs being used as umbrellas. Sandip Roy/Firstpost[/caption] “No one leave. This storm is like the Congress storm that will sweep the country” shouted an optimistic though dripping man standing on his chair and trying to retain control of his bedgraggled flock. “Take a picture of me,” he said making the V-sign. “I am not even sheltering under an umbrella.” But then the rain turned into pelting hail, the lights went out, and the “Congress storm” became a muddy stampede towards the exits. The Pradesh Congress had planned an All Hail the Chief for Rahul in Kolkata. They got a hailstorm instead. “Rahul should have contacted a jyotishi and figured out if this date was shubh,” complained one man picking his way through the mud. “No, no,” joked a policeman standing and watching the mudbath, “It’s Mamata’s totka (evil spell ).” “Ei je Seva Dal, what’s up?" a man with a party badge told a Seva Dal worker in a white sari with green border. “It’s too bad,” she mourned. “This would have been a good programme.” One man trying to find his lost friends shouted into the phone “ Can’t you see me? I am standing at the foot of Shahid Minar under a green chair.” A group of women stood huddled under a piece of tarp while a man selling tea from a kettle groused “You come to make 500 rupees. And you’ll have to take medicines worth 5000 rupees.” Bedraggled posters of Rahul and Sonia gazed mutely down at the fleeing hordes. A few enterprising young men put a billboard of Rahul to good use. They turned it into a makeshift umbrella, holding it above their heads as they scurried through the downpour. As the grounds filled with water, one man, true to Bengali stereotype, skipping through the puddles told another “There might be a koi fish in one of these puddles. At least we can get something out of this.” By the time the squall was over, men were standing around, some without shirts, some just in their boxers, wringing their clothes dry. The vegetable patties and lemon-tea wallahs appeared trying to salvage their drenched business but the entire ground was just a sea of mud and upturned chairs, with dangling electric wires and naked bamboo scaffolding. In the midst of it the sun finally came out and a helicopter appeared overhead. [caption id=“attachment_1451297” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] People taking shelter from the rain in the rally. Sandip Roy/Firstpost[/caption] “There he is. Rahul Rahul,” shouted those still milling around. There was a new stampede back through the slush towards the podium. Women with their saris hitched up to their knees complained as men clambered on shaky plastic chairs obstructing their view. Rahul came. Rahul waved. Rahul shook a few outstretched hands. Or that’s what most of us heard he was doing via running commentary from those who had managed to secure a rickety chair to stand on. And then he left after about seven minutes because there were no microphones working. “At least he came through this duryog (disaster). That’s a lot,” said one man washing his feet in the water from a tanker supplying drinking water. “Mamata would have just stayed in her helicopter.” That was unfair. Didi had braved it through an even more torrential daylong downpour for her grand victory rally in 2011 which had turned the Brigade Parade Ground into Ma, Muddy, Manush . But on a day when even the Gods seemed to be against their leader, the Congress loyalists could be forgiven for taking shelter in some solace where they could. “Well that was that,” said one Bengali man to his friends after the helicopter disappeared into the twilight. “What shall we go eat now?” Luckily Anadi Cabin legendary for its greasy two-third egg Mughlai parathas was just across the street.