Happy (belated) birthday

Mamata Banerjee missed celebrating her favourite idol Rabindranath Tagore’s sesquicentennial birth anniversary because she was not in power at the time. No matter, Bengal’s maverick chief minister is making up for it with a three-day belated birthday celebration on August 8, 9 and 10. All schools, public and private, have been asked to participate in a rally as have ordinary citizens who now get to hear Tagore’s songs at select traffic points. The rally will start from four points in the city. It is telling that Ms Banerjee has deemed that the rally will start at 9 a m and end at 12 noon at Shahid Minar so as not to disrupt traffic. Obviously, she has odd notions of the work hours Kolkatans keep.