There’s an old adage in Bollywood Hindi: geedar ki jab maut aati hai woh shehar ki taraf bhaagta hai. There cannot be a proper translation, for the line is as typically to Bollywood as Bollywood itself.

But like all things Bollywood, the hunt for a parallel in Indian politics would not exactly throw up an empty search. Take, for instance, the chief minister of a pretty populous state who booted out alleged jackboots after more than three decades. It was nothing short of a green revolution in the Writers’ Building, where the CM’s diktats are writ and sent out, in a state where two generations grew up with the theme song “gimme red”.

All was going well for the CM when she suddenly seemed to have hit Buddha-esque enlightenment. She turned right and started running toward the city, or ‘shehar’, as Bollywood wisdom puts it: questioning rape victims, crib deaths, rapes per se, media’s intention, opposition’s intention, conspiracists’ intention.

The proverbial last straw came snapping down when she usurped the state election commission’s (SEC) role as well, announcing elections dates and security bandobast and other such details on her own.

On Friday, the Calcutta high court said enough might well have been enough. In one fell swoop, it cut the CM to size: declaring that the state had no business declaring it would hold two-phase elections for the panchayats, and that it had even less business declaring there would be no central paramilitary forces to secure electioneering.

The court gave the SEC time till Saturday to announce fresh polling dates, declaring it would have to be a three-phase polling, and asked the state government to provide details of security forces deployment and observers, again by Saturday.

In effect, the court told the government to take a printout of its earlier order and shove it down the pot and flush it.

The problem with the CM is not that she is a problem seeker (which she undoubtedly is), or that she is a megalomaniac (which she undeniably is), or that she suffers from foot-in-mouth disease (which is chronic in her case), or even that she lets her motormouth speed off at formula 1 pace when braking is not only advisable but the need of the hour (which she is a past master at). The problem with the CM is that she is Mamata Banerjee, and she feels, acts and behaves like Mamata Banerjee.

For Mamata Banerjee to stop rushing off toward the city-shehar, Mamata Banerjee has to learn to put brakes on her itch to do any of the three verbs associated with that proper noun: feel, act and behave like Mamata Banerjee.

As for the elections, the Trinamool Congress would no doubt win it, albeit with reduced numbers than what would have happened had Banerjee not lost the plot totally.