CM Gets It Right, Reporter Doesn't

The excitement of the night of 7 September 2008 was such that I thought I wouldn't be able to go to sleep! Mamata Banerjee, inspite of the Left Front and the right-wing Bengal media's attempt to present her as "mad, bad and dangerous to know" (to use a phrase from another era used for another person in another country!) managed to pull off a spectacular triumph by forcing the ludicrously arrogant Left Front Govt. to capitulate and bow down to most of her demands. This whole Singur-Nandigram controversy has been fascinating for the clarity with which the CPI(M) kept consolidating its newfound position as the bosom friend of the capitalist and the sworn enemy of the farmer! Not surprisingly, a section of the media is very pleased with the Communist Party's newfound love of capitalism and have happily decided to vilify anyone who gets in the way of no-holds-barred money-making. Mamata Banerjee is such an easy target! Lacking as she is in English, in sophistication, in "class" she ready material for snobbish ridicule! Recently she was compared to the Roman Emperor Nero!! Her painting was declared equivalent to Nero's fiddling! So far so acceptable, because this comparison did not pretend to be a report, but merely a childish comparison! What stunned me was a report in Monday's press, of Sunday night's press conference at Raj Bhavan. In one newspaper, the reporter describes the scene thus: "A little after 10:30, when the talks ended, [Chief Minister] Bhattacharjee was a picture of chivalry as he and Mamata followed governor Gopalkrisha Gandhi to Raj Bhavan's Marble Hall to face the media."
""You get on the dias first," the chief minister said, and she did." Well, as the first image in this blog will tell you, it was the CM who was first up on the dias (he can be seen standing to the left of the Governor). Even after he has taken his position beside the Governor, Mamata Banerjee is still climbing the steps. I saw this bit of the drama over and over again so I know what happened. The CM did indeed ask Mamata B. to get on the dias first, but she firmly asked him to do so, repeating the "request" once! He sheepishly climbed up, followed by Partho Chatterjee in the green kurta and then the lady herself! CM got it right. He knew who was really wearing the dhoti last night. He did as Mamata B asked him to do. Our reporter probably had his eye play a trick on him. He blissfully reversed the order in which the CM and the "Mad Lady" got on the dias! Our reporter also does not realize that "chivalry" is a deeply patriarchal, patronising code of conduct towards the female and not really something to applaud anyone for, even if that anyone is a Capitalist-Communist Chief Minister of a Capitalist-Communist state so beloved of the capitalist media!