7.45pm: A team of labourers was lifting pedestal fans from the protest site.

8.10pm: Some of the junior doctors were seen looking for train tickets for Thursday.

11.45pm: A series of empty beds and cots lent an almost eerie look to the site. The crowd had thinned significantly.

12.45am: A protester announced from the dais: “Our representatives have come out of Nabanna. They are returning dejected. The protest and cease-work will continue.”

The site of the junior doctors’ protest outside Swasthya Bhavan, buzzing with people till the night before, was deserted by 10pm on Wednesday.

The buzz had started fizzling out from the evening. Signs of winding up were apparent shortly after 7.30pm.

Around 1am, protesters at the site were few and the vigour was missing but the slogans demanding “justice” came back.

Till 11.45pm, when the delegation of doctors that went to Nabanna for a meeting with the administration was yet to leave the state secretariat, sources among the protesting doctors said the team would return to the protest venue and conduct a general board meeting before announcing the next move.

For the past nine days, the road would look like a fair, especially in the evening. Apart from the protesting doctors who have been camping there from September 10, hundreds of people — from near and far — would assemble to support the siege.

They would shout slogans, sing songs of protest, blow conch shells, ululate and sway to the beats of dhaak along with the doctors.

Wednesday evening stood in sharp contrast. At the food kiosk, volunteers from the junior doctors’ forum were seen stacking packets of chips and cakes and putting them into cardboard boxes.

At the Abhaya clinics nearby, medicines were being packed into cartons by another set of volunteers.

A man removing the fans said they were instructed by the decorator.

“If they have a successful meeting in Nabanna then we have to be ready to move.
This is why we are keeping things ready,” said one of the junior doctors near the food kiosks.

“They” meant the delegation of 30 doctors, who had left on a bus for Nabanna at 6.36pm. Most of the members of the team had also visited Kalighat to meet the chief minister on Monday.

On Wednesday, the delegation met a team of government officials led by Bengal’s chief secretary, who was also present at Kalighat.

The deafening slogans lost decibel and, by 9pm, the place almost fell silent.

A meeting of the junior doctors at the protest site began at 8.30pm. A ground-floor room at the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA) office was opened for the meeting.

Sources quoted multiple voices at the meeting.

“We are missing out on studies. Exams are nearing. The long protest is taking a toll on our health. It is very taxing,” said a doctor.

Another warned of “a dip in public support” if the siege was not lifted.

The naysayers made their voices heard as well.

“If we let our guard down now, everything will be swept under the carpet again,”
the source quoted a doctor as saying.