http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120624/jsp/frontpage/story_15651109.jsp#.T-chORdo35s

Intensive care, even for garland  Carnival greets Pranab at home

CHANDRIMA S. BHATTACHARYA

Pranab Mukherjee with his sister Annapurna Bandyopadhyay (seated) and other family members at Kirnahar in Birbhum on Saturday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal Mirati (Birbhum), June 23: A huge garland is being carried past Kirnahar to Mirati in an ambulance. The residents of the two villages, where Pranab Mukherjee spent his childhood and early youth, look at him in three ways. Some are simply proud that someone they can claim as their own — though Mamata Banerjee called him a "son of the world" — is set to be President. Some are lovingly indifferent, as towards someone very familiar. "We have known him since he was a boy," says Shyamapada Mandal, who owns a cosmetics and stationery store in Kirnahar. "He never shows off. He never had 'grandness'." Others think that Mukherjee has been neglectful towards the place he came from. But all turn up as Mukherjee arrives to visit his Mirati home and seek the blessings of household deity Naranarayan and to meet his elder sister at Kirnahar. It is carnival time. Mukherjee will stop at sister Annapurna Bandyopadhyay's house on Kamoda Kinkar Mukhopadhyay Sarani — which stretches past the Mirati house and is named after their father, a freedom fighter — to catch up with his family and eat a small portion of fruits, for it is Saturday. The 82-year-old, mild-mannered Annapurna, six years her brother's senior, is irritable today. A deluge of visitors and reporters allowed her to have her breakfast only after noon. Her pretty college-going granddaughter, Rituparna, is wearing a pretty pink salwar suit. She is the only member of the household to have ventured outdoors today among strangers. A platform where Mukherjee will be given the guard of honour is being covered with red cloth and a red carpet is being rolled out, offering a dramatic contrast to the staid two-storey peach-coloured house with green windows where his sister lives. Men in plumed caps are practising their music for the guard of honour. Mukherjee being garlanded at Mirati on Saturday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal Crowds are gathering steadily. Mukherjee's son Abhijit, former SAIL general manager and now MLA from Nalhati, arrives driving a green jeep. He leaves for Mirati, which will be his father's first stop. The crowds have already gathered there. Men, women, children, politicians, farmers and a sea of cars fill up the walled compound and its surroundings. Mukherjee was born here in the two-storey mud house that still stands beside the two-storey concrete house that was built later. Mukherjee comes visiting every year during Durga Puja, which is performed at the house — the temple outside is under repairs. He participates personally, performing the Chandipath himself. Signs of Mukherjee's power are strewn everywhere in the neighbourhood. The bridge that has to be crossed to arrive at the house is credited to him. A school is coming up close and so is a lock-gate on the river Kuniye, which flows nearby. As numerous people enter and are barred from the main house, an elderly man in a white dhoti and kurta walks in. He used to be Mukherjee's teacher. His name is Debranjan Mukhopadhyay. An elderly woman, wearing a widow's white sari, tattered, leans against a post, holding on to two small girls. "He used to play with us. He was so good, so good as a boy," she cries. Others come in through the gate, holding aloft gifts, mostly bouquets, one of them heart-shaped and wrapped in green paper. A man stands on one side of the entrance, looking at the pond that goes around three sides of the house. A cool breeze blows across it. "Pranab Mukherjee has done a lot for this place. But some feel it came very late -– the road, for example. Some feel he forgot this place. Remember, he didn't win an election from here," he says, adding: "He will also have to vacate his Jangipur seat as MP." He voices a complaint made by several others, too. "Mirati gets waterlogged every year; it happens even at Mukherjee's home. It's a longstanding problem but nothing has been done." A group of Santhal musicians, the men in red and green and the women in red-bordered saris with flowers in their hair and ghats on top of their heads, are performing. The men are beating softly on their drums of various shapes; the women are singing. It sounds like a low, intoxicating incantation amid all the noise. "We don't find them (the dancers) interesting any more," says the man. Sukhen Ghosh of Kirnahar, who is otherwise adulatory of Mukherjee, feels that the area badly needs a hospital, a police station and a college. Kirnahar can be called a small town now. Suddenly the drums beat louder and are joined by dhaks. It's around 2.30 and Mukherjee has arrived. In a white dhoti and kurta, an uttariya around his neck and wearing a calm expression, he steps out of his car and is immediately swallowed by the crowd. He walks into the house, is welcomed with the huge garland, goes into the puja room and is besieged by the gift-givers. He smiles and talks to people he knows. He addresses a news conference outside, partly in English, where he talks about the fundamentals of the Indian economy being strong. This is his last meeting with reporters as finance minister, he says. A little girl tries to get near him, pushed by her father. About an hour later, Mukherjee arrives at Kirnahar, at his sister's house. She greets him outside. He touches her feet. They step inside; the doors stay closed till he leaves about an hour later. That's the last Kirnahar and Mirati will see of him for a long time.