Opinion Stop at blue

Mamata Banerjee is known for her preference for the colours blue and white. Ever since she came to power in West Bengal, she has had everything, from flyovers to taxis, painted white with blue trim in Kolkata. She is said to believe that these are her lucky colours. And they do exude positive vibrations in Kolkata. Think of the saris of the Missionaries of Charity. Appreciate the trusty rubber sandal, Didi’s preferred footwear. Applaud Kolkata’s new “no refusal” taxis in their blue and white livery. They certainly look trimmer than the old rattletraps, done up in bilious yellow. The former cannot turn down a fare. The latter are jocularly called “refusal” taxis.

Didi is large of heart and large of purse, though her state is broke. She is  willing to share her favourite colour scheme with Kolkata’s private homes and buildings, which are mostly painted a comfortable, middle class shade of beige, with mossy green trim in the monsoons. If they paint themselves over in Didi’s colours, they will be waived property tax for a year. This is official. The mayor has announced it. And the previous mayor, who is communist, has reportedly denounced such revenue discrimination on the basis of colour as “apartheid”.

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The City of Joy is pretty blue already, but this is only the beginning. Shouldn’t Blue Fox, once one of the classiest restaurants, be revived by tax breaks? Can’t people dressed in classic white shirts and blue jeans get concessions? And the greatest challenge remains only half-addressed: red lights. One of Didi’s first initiatives was to play soothing Rabindra sangeet at stop lights as a traffic calming measure. But even so, to gaze upon a stop light is to see red. Didi loathes red. What Didi loathes, changes. And so we may see a day when the lights are green, amber and blue, soothing away the blues.