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Ignorance is bliss for this Indira
Indira Mukherjee has a big problem ? every time she opens her mouth, she puts her foot in it. No wonder then, her party workers look for cover whenever she starts speaking to the electorate of Kolkata North-east.
Indira Mukherjee has a big problem — every time she opens her mouth, she puts her foot in it. No wonder then, her party workers look for cover whenever she starts speaking to the electorate of Kolkata North-east.
For the uninformed, Indira Mukherjee is the real name of Mousumi Chatterjee. The 45-year-old actor has, for the last month or so, been breezing through the congested constituency and leaving many red-faced or doubling up with laughter.
She goes to a Muslim-dominated locality in Sealdah and says: “I can understand your problems because I am like many of you: I too dropped out of school.” The Congress activists trailing her cover their faces and mutter curses. The actress goes on: “Most of you have not been able to complete school like me. If you elect me, I will ensure schooling for all”.
Once she leaves the venue in her Toyota Qualis, an aide gently tells her that she may have offended the Muslims. More so since those who drop out of school do so due to poverty, while she did so to pursue a career in the tinsel world. Mousumi turns up her plucked eyebrows and, with a slight wave of her manicured fingers, dismisses the suggestion. “This is how one connects with people — find something in common and speak about it,” she declares with a regal air. Clearly, she hasn’t read Dale Carnegie or even Shiv Khera, mutters a Congress leader accompanying her.
Mousumi can’t even connect with her own party colleagues, leave aside connecting with the electorate. Most Congress workers are, at best, apathetic to her while many are clearly hostile. So naïve is the Bollywood actress that she doesn’t even know about the undercurrent of resentment against her in her own party. Or rather, the party she joined just the other day. What comes across as her biggest mistake is she takes voters to be equally naïve. But she bristles at any suggestion of her being a political greenhorn. “I have a long association with politics. I went to Parliament as a child with my aunt and enjoyed the debates,” she tells a group of educated, middle-class Bengalis at Manicktala’s Gobinda Das Lane. They, naturally, start sniggering. “If that’s called political experience, we should call ourselves seasoned politicians,” laughs Pradip Ghoshal, a local Congress leader.
At the third meeting of her day in Bankimpara in the same locality, Mousumi does it again — she feels she should counter another candidate’s allegation that she is an opportunist and joined the Congress for her personal gains. “I have a long association with this party. My aunt, Mukul Banerjee, was an aide to Indira Gandhi. Why, don’t you all know that my real name is Indira?” she asks the motley crowd. She feels she’s delivered a good punch to the smear campaign against her and leaves the stage without even asking the people to vote for her. In the airconditioned comfort of her vehicle, she wipes off the sweat, adjusts her hair that’s tied in a tight bun, dabs a bit of anti-perspirant and turns to her aides with a poser: “How was that?” The aides grope for an answer, but she is not bothered about what they feel.
Meeting after meeting, Mousumi tries to woo the electorate with vague promises of good roads, water and power supply and employment. “I will take this city out of the dark days and nights and ensure continuous power supply if I am elected,” she tells the residents of Bowbazar. When an aide tells her later that the days of power cuts are long over for this city, she stares at him in amazement.
Understandable, since she’s just landed here from her plush 2,500 sq ft apartment in Mumbai’s upmarket Pali Hill after completing her latest film, Aap Hain Kaun? Next week, she will get to know if the electorate is asking her precisely this question.
