Subhayun Banerjee, an MBA student of Eastern Institute of Management who was seen jostling in the crowd and holding aloft his mobile phone camera to record the proceedings, said he is not politically affiliated but is in “awe of the greatest leader in India” and so he had come to pay his last respects to him. “He was one of the most intelligent politicians I have read of and I wouldn’t miss a chance to pay my respects to him,” says Banerjee, who had come with Andrew Rumbach, a student of Cornell University in New York who is in Kolkata to pursue a course at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences.

“I studied Indian politics in college and that is how I was initiated to Jyoti Basu. I know he is big, not only in Kolkata, but also in the history of the Communist movement in the country,” said Rumbach.

Sumon Das, a Class XI student from Metiabruz, had dug heels at the state Assembly to get a last glimpse of Basu since 11 am. “But I left the queue to get water and am not being let in again. Come what may, I will not give up trying to catch a glimpse of our leader. I had even tried going to the hospital when he was admitted, but I wasn’t let in,” says Das.

However, there were others who were there to watch the great spectacle. “It’s a big event. We have not seen a crowd like this even during the political processions that paralyse the city every other day,” says Srirupa De, an intern at the SSKM hospital who had walked down to Mohur Kunj with her friends to watch the proceedings.