The Fight - Page 2

Look at these people. Do they look like professional, or even habitual activists? These people are well settled in life with families, and expect life to run a predictable course. They pay their civic dues and yearn for peace and a little bit of service in return. And here they are, with crudely manufactured banners and posters, uneasily side-stepping mounds of sand, garbage or stone chips, protesting against ruffians and pollution. Trying to save their place of residence. In our previously reclusive and self-centered neighbourhood, this is a miracle!

After the meeting people streamed out onto the streets. they marched from one end of the road to the other, hesitantly shouting slogans in their unpractised voices. Photographs, to be used later to convince authorities, were clicked. A lorry had just left and a spot beside the pond was vacant where the above shot was taken. There was a bit of a tension in the air as the truckers and the goons were keeping a curious watch on our proceedings. Had a fight broken out, as you can well make out from the photo above, we could not have matched their muscles.

There is a dearth of strong young men(or women) in our locality. In any case, the senior people have more than made up for this dearth with their steadfast courage in the face of physical danger. However, someday the baton will have to be passed, and if you are a younger person from our neighbourhood, this is a good place to ask you to wholeheartedly join this cause for life and dignity.

Thus spake their posters - "We want to breath air, not diesel", "Stop antisocial activities", "Central Road or garbage heap?", "This place is for residence, not illegal shops" and so on...

Over the next few days we busied ourselves collecting signatures for mass petitions to the Councillors(elected representatives of Kolkata Corporation - two in our area, which falls on the interface between ward nos. 93 and 96. The pond falls in ward 93), the Police and other citizens' fora. Signatures were liberally given and deputations were organized. Nearly 25 ladies and gentlemen visited the police station and approached the Honorable Councillors.

The Police, the Councillors welcomed us enthusiastically and offered the best help they could provide. We decided to forget administrative apathy of yester years and look ahead to a new beginning. A local citizens' forum, approached by us, also forwarded a letter of support to the police.

The help, we must admit, had been at its best. Our first priority was to control illegal acivities and clean the area.

The Jadavpur Police Station, and its traffic department, headed by friendly officers, rolled out the works. The petrol seller went first. Then the truckers, very reluctantly, one after the other. A cat and mouse game between police and truckers continued over the following weeks. Trucks rolled in as soon as the patrol car had left. But this gradually stopped when cases(as we later learned) were liberally dished out. After a month of this a person with ganja in his possession was encountered by us near a food/tea stall. This particular illegal structure had been a source of pain to the locality. Shown here at a later date between two police vehicles, its empty enclosure at night became a cosy refuge for all kinds of nefarious entities including bawling drunkards. Incidents of theft were on the rise. We were suspecting a ganja association with the place for quite sometime but could not detect the "smoking gun". The people who had originally set up the stall probably had little control over the way their enclosure was being used by others. The Police subsequently removed this structure.

Meanwhile, the traffic situation was becoming dangerous at the three-way crossing opposite the Telephone Exchange. The broad stretch of Central Road(presently RamThakur sarani) narrows abruptly at this point. Autorickshaws hurtling westward down the road must suddenly decelerate to avoid their east and north bound brethren (Shown here with dotted arrows). Eastbound autos tend to veer left to utilize the wider stretch and thus avoid collision. But this crucial wider section used to be congested with all kinds of vehicles (shown here as P ). Accidents were quite common at this crossing. The Traffic Department of Jadavpur Police Station soon ensured that this congestion is relieved and turned the area into a no-parking zone.

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