Kolkatans grab handfuls of Hope

“Bengal shows how a state’s exaggerated exuberance over anything is inversely proportional to the condition of its finances,” wrote Govindaraj Ethiraj (@govindethiraj) on twitter. He’s almost 100 per cent right. Man’s exaggerated exuberance over anything might be inversely proportionate to his own condition – be it financial, marital, health-related, and so on. [caption id=“attachment_324820” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“It’s when you have little to celebrate that you would celebrate any excuse to do so. AFP”]  [/caption] It’s when you’re drowning that you clutch at straws. It’s when you have little to celebrate that you would celebrate any excuse to do so. For a family where none, in the past, has graduated, the first graduate in the family will be feted and celebrated. For a family that has not seen a girl child born for generations, the first girl child will be celebrated. For a family which has had little good news for a long time, any good news will be celebrated. So it is with Kolkata and the KKR win in the IPL. To better understand what Kolkatans are feeling, I’ll borrow from James Thurber’s short novel, The Wonderful O . “Littlejack and Black destroy the town and countryside in their search, becoming dictators in the process. In his fury and frustration at finding nothing, Black issues an edict, “I’ll get rid of O, in upper case and lower… All words in books or signs with an O in them shall have the O erased or painted out. We’ll print new books and paint new signs without an O in them,” he says. With this edict, Black effectively bans, among other qualities Hope and Freedom, as all these words contain the letter ‘O’. It is the loss of these qualities that causes the citizenry to rise in revolt – and win back the land for themselves. Under Mamata, Freedom has been in questionable supply. Hope was available in abundance thanks to the KKR win; Kolkatans have grabbed all they could with both hands.