Red carpet for reunion

Did CPI(M) polit bureau member Sitaram Yechury take a leaf out of what two struggling stars in Bollywood are planning? News is that Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham are planning to take their Dostana friendship a step further by teaming up for a series of films. Cynics jeer that it is the long line of flops that made the actors so desperate.
Yechury should know about desperation. The Left flopped in the recent Assembly polls in West Bengal and Kerala. Robbed of strongholds, it is no longer a major force in national politics. No wonder he aired what is being touted as the panacea—merger of the two parties, nearly 50 years after the split.
The CPI comrades have been, for some years, not-so-secretly expressing the wish. CPI national secretary D. Raja said his party was always open to merger. Pronto, is what other leaders are also saying. The hitch is that CPI(M) leaders in Kerala are not so excited. V.S. Achuthanandan, the only surviving face of the 32 national council members who walked out of the CPI in 1964, is keeping mum.
The hope is for a united communist movement which would be able to fight for people’s causes better, and give Baba Ramdev a run for his money. But the script to reinvigorate the Left needs better luck than the Bachchan-Abraham duo—they are yet to find producers willing to risk their money on them.



This item, written by me, appeared the Jukebox section of THE WEEK dated June 26. There was no byline, btw. And this is a reluctant attempt to breathe life to this dying blog of mine. So, thanks for reading.