Stop strike, govt tells Morcha

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, TT, Calcutta, Nov. 21: The state government today made it clear that contract workers of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council would not be made permanent if the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha kept calling strikes in the hills.

Home secretary Ardhendu Sen said: “If the hill agitation continues and normal work is disrupted, what’s the use of making casual staff permanent? We will not tolerate such acts. The more they agitate, the more will be the delay in their absorption.... How can we proceed with the absorption process if a district magistrate is gheraoed for 12 hours?”

On Thursday, Morcha activists and DGHC contract workers had held Darjeeling district magistrate Surendra Gupta and several other senior officials hostage for over 12 hours.

The Morcha said the state had assured it in September that 3,742 contract workers would be regularised and 3,000 posts created by November 15.

Sen admitted this. “We did talk about speeding up regularisation work of 3,500-odd contractual staff. We also told them that the question of creating 3,000 more posts would be reviewed after ascertaining the volume of work,” he said. But he added: “They are creating problems and not allowing development work.”

Home secy talks tough with GJMM

SNS, KOLKATA, 21 NOV: In a tough stand against fresh agitation in the Hills launched by the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) the state home secretary, Mr Ardhendu Sen, today said that the task of regularising the casual staff in Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) would be delayed further if the agitation continued.
“The state government will not move unless the movement is called off and this has been communicated to them as well. How can you get work done if the district magistrate is gheraoed well past 12 in the night?” said Mr Sen. “If development work cannot be taken up, what is the need for permanent staff?” asked the home secretary. He added that the state government was looking into the matter of regularising staff in phases but GJMM went ahead and began the agitation.

Next weekend you can be at ... Rikisum

Rikisum, located on the Pedong-Lava Road, is a quaint little settlement atop a hill. It offers a magnificent view of the mountain ranges of the Kanchenjunga and is often considered the best viewpoint of the Kalimpong sub-division for viewing the hills of Kalimpong, Darjeeling, Gangtok and Pedong towns. The place sounded interesting and the name musical. So we set off for it. As our jeep moved up from New Jalpaiguri, the hills, the usual greenery with its unusual charm and the silvery Teesta welcomed us. With a short break of an hour wedged in, it took us around four hours to reach Rikisum, 15km north of Kalimpong. We put up at the Swarna Sikhar Tourist Lodge in the village. The lodge is small, but cosy, consisting of two cottages with double beds and attached baths and three rooms with dual occupancy. Lunch was served in the cottage. As darkness fell, the valley and the hills around the lodge took on a silvery hue, thanks to the clear sky, a bright full moon and a power cut. The next morning, we trekked to a viewing point about 2km above the lodge. The view of the hills of Darjeeling, Sikkim and Bhutan, crowned by the Kanchenjunga, was breathtaking. The remains of an old British rest house nearby offers ample scope for an adventure and a treat for photography enthusiasts. In the evening, we hired a taxi and went to Dmsang Fort, 15 minutes from Pedong. Built in 1690, the fort was destroyed in the Anglo-Bhutanese war of 1864. As we proceeded towards the fort through a trekking route, the path seemed untrodden for years. While returning, we visited Pedong but left early as we wanted to get back to our pristine hamlet at Rikisum. For the next two days, we enjoyed a lazy stay at the lodge, surrounded by the calm and beauty of nature. We also went rafting in the Teesta. The adventure was thrilling but safe as we had adventure experts as guides. Going Take a New Jalpaiguri-bound train. Then hire a jeep for Rikisum. For visiting nearby places hire a taxi. Staying Share Home Stay or Swarna Sikhar Tourist Lodge. Ph: 9433003080/9933312012

(METRO ON SUNDAY, TT,  THANKS READER TAMALI GHOSH FOR THIS CONTRIBUTION. PICTURES BY PRASANTA MALLIK) New cracks The red family is in trouble too. With the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in decline, cracks have begun to appear in the Front. Left allies such as the Communist Party of India, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Forward Bloc are now openly blaming the CPI(M) for the debacle, and, we are told, are also pressing for a change at the top. There are also rumours that some of the Left Front partners have done the unthinkable: they are reported to be in touch with some leaders in the Opposition. Some CPI(M) leaders are also expected to change stripes as the polls draw near. Perhaps it’s time Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mulayam Singh Yadav took lessons on how to stem the tide. Action replay The king is following in the footsteps of the prince. Following Rahul Gandhi’s example, Jyotiraditya Scindia recently decided to visit the aam admi. In this case, they happened to be tribal communities in Guna who were asked about the state of development schemes there. During the visit, a man asked Jyotiraditya whether he wanted to have food at his hut to which he readily agreed. What’s more, the young MP even tried his hand at cooking. Some food for thought for his detractors in the opposite camp? Young and lost TT, Nov 22: Was a bad haircut reason enough for an 18-year-old to kill himself? A spate of suicides by youngsters in the city raises questions Death trail: Three young persons died on three consecutive days on the Metro Railway tracks. Picture by Pradip Sanyal Apu Basak, 18, killed himself on Sunday, November 15. The day had begun the usual way. Around 8.30 he had gone to the market close to his house in Masjidbari Street near Hatibagan and bought his favourite tilapia fish. Then he decided to get himself a haircut. The first year Bengali Honours student in the evening session at Shrishchandra College in Shyambazar was not fashionable. Nothing about him screamed for attention. His hairstyle was no exception. He was a very quiet, shy person. Around 10.45am, Apu went to the nearby barber’s shop that has no name and is fitted with only one chair and two mirrors, and asked its owner to cut his hair short. He did not mention any length, but the barber, who could only recall Apu after being asked repeatedly by everyone about him after his death, decided to give him a cropped look. Apu went back home without saying anything. At home he realised that something was terribly wrong. Even his mother Jyotsna Basak, a homemaker, laughed at him. She told him that the haircut looked “stupid”. It made him look like a bumpkin, she added. “He replied that it was not his fault but the barber’s. He went straight to the bathroom,” says Taru Basak, his father’s sister. Apu lived with his parents and members of the extended family, 14 of them in all, including his paternal uncle’s family, his paternal aunt and his grandmother, in the four cramped rooms of a two-storey house in the “colony area”. Apu’s father Manik Basak is a driver. “After Apu finished his bath he kept staring at the mirror and asked me if the haircut was looking funny. He said he wouldn’t go to college for the next few days till his hair grew back. He said even some boys had made fun of him while he was returning from the barber’s,” says Taru. She is sitting close to a photograph of Apu, in the same room where she had the conversation with him. A TV sits on the top of a showcase. Breaking news On Sunday, Apu had sat there brooding, when his eyes moved to the TV screen. A story was unfolding there. Television was “breaking news” about two suicides at Metro stations, which happened in quick succession. Madhab Basak, Apu’s uncle, remembers Apu’s conversation with Taru. “He asked her if people died instantly when they jumped on the Metro tracks. I scolded him but he smiled and said that he was only asking,” recalls Madhab, a hawker at Burrabazar. But Apu was disturbed enough by then. His father, who came back home for lunch at 2pm that day, found Apu loitering in the lane outside the house. “I asked him where he was going. He mumbled something and I brought him back home,” says Manik Basak. But around 3.30pm he was gone again, after playing for a while with his younger brother Dipu, a student of Class VI at Shyambazar AV School. According to Metro Railway sources, Apu jumped in front of a train at the Sovabazar-Sutanuti station, around 500m from his house, at 4.04pm. He burned to death instantly. Apu’s mother holds herself guilty: she thinks that her ridicule led to Apu’s death. A bad haircut may sound trivial, but on it can depend one’s appearance, one’s acceptability and one’s self-esteem. A short haircut, if it is a disaster, takes long to be redeemed. Kids’ world Apu did not have many friends of his age. He was friendly with children, from his own family and the neighbourhood. “He was not much interested in outdoor sports. He also did not like to spend much time with his college or school friends. He always returned home within minutes after his college got over at 9pm,” says Ritu, his cousin. “He had a taste for music and often used to ask for the latest Bengali and Hindi song collections from his friends,” says a classmate. He was shy of women. He only used to play kitkit and badminton with the colony kids, most of whom were girls. On Sunday, just before he left home for the Metro station, he was playing a game of hide-and-seek with his brother Dipu. Officers of Shyampukur police station feel his personality led him to the decision. “It looks like the boy was very emotional and sensitive. He was perhaps very embarrassed about his poor haircut,” says a senior officer. Yet, could it be just that? Did his reticence and shyness, his greater comfort with children, and shunning of adult company, not welcome in a “manly nature”, make Apu feel like an outsider always? Did he feel slightly ridiculed already, though everyone thought he was a “normal, good boy”? Now with the haircut, did he feel he couldn’t bear more scrutiny? He kept looking at the mirror. Was it a girl? One of his classmates said though he was “not crazy” about girls, of late his friends used to link his name with a girl from the history department and he seemed to like it. “I don’t think he ever spoke to her but we noticed him stealing a glance or two at her. He may have been scared of being laughed at by his friends and especially the girl because of his funny haircut,” says a classmate. Or was it a bigger problem? In his moment of humiliation did something flash in his mind, telling him that life would always be like this, a series of humiliations, with even a decent haircut seeming impossible, despite the effort he was putting in to make life better? Apu was serious about his studies. He had worked for two months in Burrabazar to pay for his college admission. “He told his teacher after a class test on Saturday that he could not write the paper well and promised to do better in another exam on Monday,” says Ayan Mukherjee, a classmate. Apu’s principal Anjan Sengupta and the head of the department of Bengali, Kuntal Mitra, spoke of Apu as “a very good boy”. “He was very attentive in class and very regular. He was more like a school kid than a college student,” says Mitra. “We have asked students to approach me or other teachers in case of any problem and never to follow the steps taken by Apu,” said Sengupta. But sitting in his room after the haircut, looking out through the window at the cluster of unpainted, decaying houses in his colourless north Calcutta neighbourhood and a few scraps of the November sky, Apu thought differently. Perhaps he only saw how impossible it would be to get out of there. How could he make a place in this strange adult world, where the rules were much more complex than a game of hide-and-seek? How could he think of love? When he looked at the TV, reporting the deaths on the Metro tracks, he knew he had a swift, painless way out. What of the future? Apu was not alone. The week had been crowded with the news of death of the city’s young. The coming days would bring more such news. On Friday November 13, Arnab Mukherjee, 25, who was undergoing counselling for his unhappiness over his career, had jumped to his death on the Metro tracks. The microbiology postgraduate was working as a medical representative. The same day, 16-year-old Bhaskar Sarkar, a Class IX student of Bally Jodasattala High School, was found hanging in his home in Howrah in the morning, a day after his parents were summoned to school. Bhaskar had apparently misbehaved with a teacher. The same day again, Sophiya Chatterjee, 16, a student of Class IX, was found hanging in her room in her KD Mukherjee Road home in Behala. The police suspect it to be a case of suicide. On November 14, Sujata Mehta, 22, a student of chartered accountancy died after being hit by a Metro train at Girish Park. Her family raised the possibility of an accident arising from a medical condition, but the police haven’t ruled out suicide. On Wednesday, November 18, 15-year-old Sunita Kumari, a Class X student of Howrah Shiksha Sadan, jumped to her death from her school terrace after she was allegedly caught cheating and rebuked by a teacher. Sunita was the second of tea-stall owner Radheshyam Chowrasia’s five children, four of them girls. “She was a happy girl and average in studies,” said her uncle Ganesh Bhagat. A teacher with 20 years’ experience said children these days tend to be “hypersensitive” and she was wary of scolding or punishing them, lest they “do something drastic”. Perhaps the young today find life far more complicated than they can handle. Complicated motives can lead to suicides, but no one had a clue to why these young men and women, boys and girls rather, would take the extreme step of killing themselves. “He was unusually quiet over the past couple of weeks but I had no inkling of what was in his mind,” says Arnab’s mother. Bhaskar’s mother had said she would accompany him to school. He wanted his father to go with him. So, he hung himself. The future looks daunting. SIX LIVES SNUFFED OUT • Nov 13: Arnab Mukherjee, 25, jumped on the Metro tracks at Rabindra Sarobar station • Nov 13: Bhaskar Sarkar, 16, found hanging in his room • Nov 13: Sophiya Chatterjee, 16, found hanging in her room • Nov 14: Sujata Mehta, 22, hit by train at Girish Park Metro station • Nov 15: Apu Basak (picture right), 18, jumped on the Metro tracks at Sovabazar-Sutanuti station • Nov 18: Sunita Kumari, 15, jumped from the school terrace TAMAGHNA BANERJEE