As BJP Preps For 2021 Assembly Polls, Will It Be Dada vs Didi In West Bengal?

Place: a bustling tea stall on Rashbehari Avenue, south Calcutta

Day: the last weekend before Diwali

Time: evening

Mood: balmy

Raag: Mishr Kolkatiya (in Drut Teentaal)

Adda is an institution in these parts, as everyone knows. A dead serious affair, an everyday parliament. Everything from the Sandinistas to blockchain technology to social climate change in Basirhat comes up for discussion here. Today, as these youngsters pick up the alap in an unruly chorus, the notes they strike are all quintessentially Calcuttan. There are, after all, big things that have happened.

A certain Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee has won the Nobel. With South Point School and Presidency College behind him, he’s a local lad. But there’s another local who has their undivided attention soon. Sourav Ganguly, that boy from Behala, has just become the BCCI head. But wait…there’s more! Cricket and its administration are dispensed with in the initial stages of the...