Cloudy 'State' of Affairs

The elections were too close; you could almost smell the red flags around. This time, the city was vastly peaceful. But one can never predict anything in Calcutta, any moment the riots would break out. The communist party members were the noisiest, as usual, with their marches and slogans. For years they have been ruling, very much like dictators! The people almost had no choice, but to vote for them. For some, it was to survive, or else they’ll be slaughtered to death. Yes, it was like that, not without reason did I use the word ‘dictators’.
My stint with the communist party was pretty small, yet people had managed to remember me after almost a decade now of my leaving the party. Though it’s not very tough to see the reason why. Perhaps I was the only one they thought who was not pushing the lines of violence in order to maintain our Marxist ideals! I remained active in my tenure of two years with my mind boggling speeches, although out of a million new ideas I had suggested, only a handful were implemented, and that too not with complete success. Yet I managed to remain the poster boy of Bengal’s politics in the early 90’s. Now after a long time, I’m back into mainstream politics with Trinamool, standing up from arguably the most controversial district at this moment in Bengal, that being of Singur. Mamati di has been very strong and vehement about not allowing Singur to get into Tata’s hands. The farmers here could have been in deep soup, without home and land, if mamata di hadn’t stepped in and ridiculed Buddhadeb’s plans! The people here were happy with us. The rumour was that I was undoubtedly going to win, with a huge margin! Even to just hear this was extremely comforting. It meant healing up of a lot of old wounds!
People were lining up outside booths in massive numbers on the Election Day. So many people together and each having so much power with a vote each, the power of democracy was beginning to scare me now! In my years of graduation in Vardhaman, during which I studied political science, I had read about the initialization of the democratic system, which required mass scale literacy. That being missing from our system, democratic liberty was certainly getting misused. This is what perhaps was scaring me. But the elections were held rather finely, without any ‘major’ chaos in the state. The speculations had now taken the form of betting, people had put money on parties and leaders. Huge money was on stake, from people involved. Days went by, as the temperature of the political environment and my blood pressure increased by leaps. The result day was here, I decided to stay at my home and wait for the news to reach me through television and phone calls.
My victory meant a lot to me personally, not just my party. Even though Trinamool swept around 75-80% of the seats, the one from my district tasted the sweetest, arguably. I planned a weekend trip with my wife and son to Ghoom, a beautiful place, almost heavenly, which comes on the way to Darjeeling from Bagdogra. My wife had always wished to visit the Ghoom monastery, and I could not have found a better time to go there and relax for a couple of days. The mist and the clouds floating in front of our eyes made it difficult for my camera to make crystal clear pictures, but the hard disc in my brain will never have the visuals foggy. I had never seen a place so intimate, and so divine. ‘Ghoom’ in bengali means sleep, and so true to its name. The place ensures one’s relaxation, almost as if you’re sound asleep. We went in the evening to the monastery after a short nap in the afternoon as soon as we arrived. The clouds accompanied us at our eye level, as if touching and speaking to us. But I did not know that they would turn out to be the monsters.
My wife and son have not been found yet, dead or alive since then. I frantically tried but I just couldn’t locate them, the clouds had helped the kidnappers!