Calcutta Diary

It is not that Subhas Mukhopadhyay did not receive enough of prizes and rewards when he was a card-carrying communist. He was a household name in Bengali left households, generations have been reared, and inspired, by his poetry and prose. But once bitten by the bug of disillusion, he got hopelessly disequilibrated. He migrated from faith into cynicism. He chose, particularly during the closing years, coarse company. It was a coarse funeral he received. It is a cruel thing to say, but he dug his own grave. It is a tragedy, but there it is.