OBITUARY: THE MINISTER OF LIGHT

Calcutta of the 1980s was known as the 'load-shedding city'. a technical term of electrical engineering - whose exact definition few ever got to know - 'load shedding' had entered regular bengali vocabulary for the simple reason that power cuts were a daily part of our growing up years. 2-4 hours of 'loadshedding/ 'ebar jaabe'/ 'current nei'/ 'ondhokaar'/ 'alo nibhe jabe' was routine in calcutta proper and the suburban areas and villages fared worse, much worse.

Our lives revolved around the time when power was supposed to go off and stay off. not surprisingly, there was a great ever-innovative market of lamps - hyariken, hajak, lompho, mombati and kerosene was all the more important as fuel. the evening DD news dutifully read out how many hundred megawatt less-than-necessary power had been produced. no one exactly knew what that meant, but it was a way of getting a feel of the things. everyone prayed that the power stayed on during the time one's favourite tv serial was broadcast (althought it was not impossible that loadshedding would hit the DD headquarters too! really!) ...On one particular doomsday, i still remember, everything just crashed! trains and trams stopped moving, hospitals stopped surgery and even the crematoriums stopped midway!!!!

Then came SANKAR SEN. ex-prof. of electrical engineering and ex-VC of Jadavpur university, as minister for power, and within a couple of months, the difference was visible to even the staunchest opponent. Sen, more of a teacher and technocrat than a politician, was one of those few who knew his job inside out, and it was impossible to make him a murgi. the joke went, 'everyone in the electricity dept is either his student, or student of his students. now, which engineer-babu can bluff his own prof?' it wont be any exaggeration to claim that few ministers - either in left front or in tmc today - have been so adored as him.

Sen's career in political top brass was relatively short. he ran into the profiteering junta, tried fighting a lone war against entrenched corruption and found little support from his 'comrades'. But by that time, he had revamped the power situation in west bengal. things have improved from where he left, but there is no doubt that it was he who set the correct course. there has been no looking back since then. That is why, yesterday, when the news flashed of his demise at the ripe age of 92, red and blue and bengalis of all other hue paused momentarily to fondly recall how the 'bidyut montri' had helped us all to have a better slice of life.

respect.

(pic: anandabazar patrika)