The die-hard Communist and ``full time chief minister except when I sleep'' took on a volley of personal questions from the state's ``women who matter'' with characteristic humour and wit.

``I survived the ladies then and I guess I picked up the art that early in life,'' Basu quipped at a meet of the Ladies Study Group Charitable Trust last evening.

When eminent actress Rupa Ganguly wondered whether the busy chief minister spent time with his grandchildren and wanted to be away from politics even for a while, he said, ``I love them all but can only meet one of them who is here more often... She is growing up to be a brilliantactress like you. But I am a chief minister all the while, except when I am sleeping.''

``But soon when I retire from politics I think I will have more time than today to indulge in the finer things of life. Yet I will remain a Communist to my grave.''

The little things he would have enjoyed doing today were reserved for the time when he retired from politics, Basu said. ``The situation is coming when I would no longer be the chief minister or in the government. It has been a long 22-year stretch. I'm sure I'll find enough time for my family after this long work life.''

However, Communism is an ideology he will never retire from. ``Though it has failed in most practising countries, I still believe it is a science and not a gospel or God's word. It needs change from time to time to work with the times.''

Basu said the ``dying tribe'' of Communists needed to look into their policies and bring about workable changes for it to click. To a query on what he would have been if not a politician, Basu said,``My father sent me to London to be a barrister... I would have been a lawyer then.''

Answering a question by eminent economic analyst Omkar Goswami, who was among the few men around, Basu said his single biggest regret in life was that India was nowhere near achieving the targets laid down after Independence.

``In all spheres -- social, political and economical -- we are grossly behind the targets set 50 years back. But I'm an optimist and I have faith in people...''

``Amartya Sen's theory of welfare economics is gaining ground today and even the World Bank and IMF have realised that there is something wrong in their policies... Indian will benefit from introspection on this,'' he said.

Vehicular pollution disturbs Basu to the core. ``Calcutta's pollution problem is not just technical,'' he said replying to green activist Banani Kakkar's remark on the menace.

``But knowing that it took three years just to remove hawkers from Calcutta streets, we understand how difficult environmental issues are totackle head-on.''

Depleting moral standards among youngsters was as much a cause of concern, he told the gathering.

``You don't find them offering a seat to the elderly in public conveyances any more. In fact morality has become a thing of the past everywhere -- in society as well as in politics,'' he said taking a dig at the rampant corruption which has infiltrated into the `system'.

Basu was equally amused at the long convoys which follow his car everywhere he went. ``I'm supposed to come under the Z-security category meaning even after fifty years' of Independence my security is threatened and that makes me unhappy.''