Points: A common sight — Held for different purposes — Description of an interesting street-corner meeting.
Street-Corner meetings are held very often. They are held on various issues. Usually small groups of people organize such meetings. A person is seen standing on a soap-box and making speeches. Most often there is no microphone the speaker has to shout’ at the top of his voice. He collects a small crowd around him. Persons come and go, but the crowd remains.
Street-corner meetings may be for political agitation or for ventilating certain public grievances. Sometimes people sell cheap things by organizing street corner-meetings. They are usually held in the evening and near crossroads.
I once witnessed a very interesting street-corner meeting. A number of young men and women gathered at the crossing of Mahatma Gandhi Road and Bidhan Sarani. The place was not far from Calcutta University and the Coffee House. They were carrying a placard containing a slogan ‘Read More Poetry.’ Soon after the meeting started, a young looking poet made a short speech. He said by ‘poetry’ one should mean only ‘modern poetry.’ All other poetry, he said, was trash. The poet-speaker recited poems after poems from Jibanananda Das. I had never witnessed such a literary street-corner meeting before. ‘Read More Poetry’ sounded to me very much Like ‘Grow More Food.’
Street-Corner meetings are held very often. They are held on various issues. Usually small groups of people organize such meetings. A person is seen standing on a soap-box and making speeches. Most often there is no microphone the speaker has to shout’ at the top of his voice. He collects a small crowd around him. Persons come and go, but the crowd remains.
Street-corner meetings may be for political agitation or for ventilating certain public grievances. Sometimes people sell cheap things by organizing street corner-meetings. They are usually held in the evening and near crossroads.
I once witnessed a very interesting street-corner meeting. A number of young men and women gathered at the crossing of Mahatma Gandhi Road and Bidhan Sarani. The place was not far from Calcutta University and the Coffee House. They were carrying a placard containing a slogan ‘Read More Poetry.’ Soon after the meeting started, a young looking poet made a short speech. He said by ‘poetry’ one should mean only ‘modern poetry.’ All other poetry, he said, was trash. The poet-speaker recited poems after poems from Jibanananda Das. I had never witnessed such a literary street-corner meeting before. ‘Read More Poetry’ sounded to me very much Like ‘Grow More Food.’
