KOLKATA: He had dreamt it long ago, how long, even he doesn't recall. The hope was so incredible that the only escape to realize it was in a dream. Till Thursday night.
"Have you ever had something that you always wanted so very badly but never imagined would be yours? It's that kind of a feeling. Ami bole bojhate parbo na. (I can't really explain it)," said Nityananda Ghosh, before scampering off like a mad man.
Nityananda was among the millions of Didi fanatics who danced on the city streets and village farmlands on Friday after news of a Trinamool Congress sweep spread.
A few minutes of madness later, Nityananda was back, gulping down water from a jug and catching his breath. "We have won. Didi has done it. I knew she could move mountains. Now, she has dislodged the mighty CPM. She has done the impossible. Till a couple of years ago, I never thought I would see the CPM being driven out of power during my lifetime. Even then, I dared not think about it lest there be a repeat of 2001," he said breathlessly.
Nityananda runs a small fan repair cubbyhole wedged between two shops on Nirmal Chandra Street. The nondescript shop without an address has remained the same since he managed to wriggle into the 3ft×8ft space and set up the shop.
From his teens, he would accompany his uncle, a low-rung Congress politician, to michhils and meetings. They were regular affairs till one August day in 1990, when ruffians beat up a sprightly Youth Congress leader who hated CPM as passionately as the average Congress supporter on the streets did. "I knew then that if anyone could give CPM the jitters, it was Didi," he recalled.
Why Nityananda hates CPM is somewhat fuzzy, but he has several reasons to cite. The genesis behind the hatred, he says, is the insult to Rabindranath Tagore. "They called Gurudev a bourgeois poet. They stopped English education. The party cadres went about collecting money from poor hawkers. They didn't have any shame," he said.
Nityananda was in the 'Writers' Abhiyan' michhil on July 21, 1993. "Then CM Jyoti Babu and home minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee are to blame for the firing order that killed 13 supporters. It was Mamata who galvanized the anger of youths into a potent force that would fight till the end," he says. When Mamata was thrown out of Congress and formed her own party in 1998, Nityananda was among thousands of Congress supporters to switch alliance. It was Mamata's plain-speak, simple living and determination to take on the Left that swayed them to support her.
Thirteen years later, he woke up on a Friday the 13th to see his dream turn into reality.
"Have you ever had something that you always wanted so very badly but never imagined would be yours? It's that kind of a feeling. Ami bole bojhate parbo na. (I can't really explain it)," said Nityananda Ghosh, before scampering off like a mad man.
Nityananda was among the millions of Didi fanatics who danced on the city streets and village farmlands on Friday after news of a Trinamool Congress sweep spread.
A few minutes of madness later, Nityananda was back, gulping down water from a jug and catching his breath. "We have won. Didi has done it. I knew she could move mountains. Now, she has dislodged the mighty CPM. She has done the impossible. Till a couple of years ago, I never thought I would see the CPM being driven out of power during my lifetime. Even then, I dared not think about it lest there be a repeat of 2001," he said breathlessly.
Nityananda runs a small fan repair cubbyhole wedged between two shops on Nirmal Chandra Street. The nondescript shop without an address has remained the same since he managed to wriggle into the 3ft×8ft space and set up the shop.
From his teens, he would accompany his uncle, a low-rung Congress politician, to michhils and meetings. They were regular affairs till one August day in 1990, when ruffians beat up a sprightly Youth Congress leader who hated CPM as passionately as the average Congress supporter on the streets did. "I knew then that if anyone could give CPM the jitters, it was Didi," he recalled.
Why Nityananda hates CPM is somewhat fuzzy, but he has several reasons to cite. The genesis behind the hatred, he says, is the insult to Rabindranath Tagore. "They called Gurudev a bourgeois poet. They stopped English education. The party cadres went about collecting money from poor hawkers. They didn't have any shame," he said.
Nityananda was in the 'Writers' Abhiyan' michhil on July 21, 1993. "Then CM Jyoti Babu and home minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee are to blame for the firing order that killed 13 supporters. It was Mamata who galvanized the anger of youths into a potent force that would fight till the end," he says. When Mamata was thrown out of Congress and formed her own party in 1998, Nityananda was among thousands of Congress supporters to switch alliance. It was Mamata's plain-speak, simple living and determination to take on the Left that swayed them to support her.
Thirteen years later, he woke up on a Friday the 13th to see his dream turn into reality.
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