माणिक सरकार की सादगी के बारे में पढ़ा-लिखा तो बहुत था … मगर इस बार ‘लगभग’ फर्स्ट हैंड अनुभव हुआ है… उनकी इस सादगी को करीब से देखने -सुनने समझने का अवसर मिला है मेरे बेहद करीबी दोस्त पार्थो को … एक संक्षिप्त टिप्पणी के साथ पार्थो ने इस जननेता के साथ इत्तेफाकन हुयी अपनी मुलाकात के एक खुशनुमां लम्हे को दर्ज करती इस सेल्फ़ी को इस वादे के साथ शाया किया है कि बहुत जल्द ही वो इस मुलाकात के दौरान हुयी बातों पर विस्तार से लिखेगा… मैं बेसब्री से उसके लिखने का इंतज़ार कर रहा हूँ …
On my way to Delhi on Sunday evening, I sat next to an elderly gentleman. I was told by one of the co – passengers that the person I was sitting next to was the chief minister of Tripura. Manik Sircar?? Really? Wow!! Surely he wouldn’t talk to me. Surely a chief minister of a state only talks to rich industrialists or other political honchos.
What followed was two hours of most enthralling discussions on the history of communism in India, the fall of Soviet Union and the rise of alternative communism in China, Nehruvian socialism, Hindutva, why Mr. Sircar does not approve of the Aam Aadmi Party rhetoric, the present political scenario in Bengal, why he thought my mother’s naming of me betrayed the nuances of her intellect and his refined taste in Indian Classical Music. At the end of the journey he told me that I had managed to keep him off revising a draft of an important piece that he just had to finish but that he liked it. He asked me to keep in touch. I asked him to keep inspiring us with the mist outstanding example of a people’s chief minister in our country. A truly accessible servant of the people. One who spent two hours talking to a stranger on a plane only because he was asking him questions. That was enough. That was democracy!! Long may live this glorious tradition of the Indian justify.
avant-garde 