Mridul and his wife Jharna only have a few expectations from parties contesting in the West Bengal elections.
Highlights
- Mridul and his wife have a few expectations from the parties
- No jobs, no healthcare and petty corruption - things remain unchanged
- They want 2 things from whoever comes to power- education and healthcare
The only thing Mridul Nandi was told about June 21, 1977, the day he was born, was that Kolkata bore a new red glow. "My father says the street lights were covered with red paper that night," he says.
As Mridul came into the world, CPM leader Jyoti Basu was forming the Left government which would then go on to rule Bengal for 34 years.
He moved from Barasat to Siliguri to Narendrapur with his family but only left Bengal when he went to university in Maryland to do his post doctorate in mathematics.
That's the time in 2007 when he married another girl from Bengal, Jharna, who was also doing her post-doctoral studies in Maryland.
They worked in the US and had two children but a yearning for home and a job offer of teaching at the Indian Statistical Institute or ISI brought them back home in 2011.
In alliance with the Congress this time, CPI-M hopes to return to power.
This time, the red glow was gone, replaced by Mamata Banerjee's green who had surfed to power with the promise of poriborton or change.
"I want to take the small instance of healthcare. We could never trust anyone here and that's why if anyone had even the slightest bit of money they took health problems to the south," he says, relating a recent incident when his wife Jharna needed to consult a gastroenterologist.
"We went to one of the known names who charged us Rs 700 for a consultation. His people saw us and he didn't even give us 10 seconds of his time, telling us - please go to the reception," he says.
They pray for good health to keep them away from such hospitals but one aspect of Bengal is a hurtful reminder every moment.
"You can't get a job unless you know someone," said Mridul, "I applied to so many institutes but only got a job with ISI as my supervisor became the director." But his wife who has done her post-graduation from IIT Kharagpur and post-doctorate from the US, is still looking years later.
The Trinamool Congress hopes to recreate its 2011 landslide victory. (PTI photo)
"I am constantly reducing my expectations of a job - from an institute to any college to any teaching," said Jharna, "I was working in the US so I don't know why I can't get (anything here)."
No jobs, no healthcare and petty corruption - the connecting threads of what's unchanged in their life, between the red and recent green years.
"I applied for renewal of my passport in 2005 when I had to go to Mexico," said Mridul. "They kept asking me for this and that and I bribed them because they wanted it but I think they thought it wasn't enough because it still didn't happen till it was very late."
Jharna had no urgency and so she decided she wouldn't bribe when she applied for her passport a year ago.
"So even though I had travelled to Sweden and other places with my old passport, they kept calling me to the police station and it was more than six months before I finally got it," she said.
Born with the left and living with Trinamool, they want just two things from whoever comes to power - education and healthcare for their children.