Person of the year Mao Zedong, Vladimir Mayakovksy, Vaclav Havell -- communist revolutionaries who also wrote poetry, excited and inspired him. Never mind the quality of their poems or the fate of their revolutions, such were the modern-day heroes of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, himself a communist and an aspiring poet-playwright. In the first year of the new millennium, he seemed to have reinvented himself as much as others rediscovered him. The tough-talking, business-wooing chief minister of West Bengal is clearly the most remarkable thing to happen to a generally non-happening state. Suddenly, his world of heroes had names like Azim Premji, Anil Ambani and Bill Gates, whose ideas of the market and private enterprise seem to be firing his Marxist imagination. The 'Smiling Buddha', white-haired but boy-faced, has come to symbolise new hope for a state that entrepreneurs and analysts had long written off as a wasteland. Business and industry bigwigs who were asking 'Buddha who?' till a year ago were suddenly falling over each other to try and know him better. When exactly was the new leader born ? What really is his new message that has charmed money mandarins ? The common answer is Bhattacharjee's second coming began after the state assembly elections last May when, like Tony Blair leading the New Labour to a convincing second term in office in England, Bhattacharjee led the New Left to victory against intrepid Mamata Banerjee. The public rediscovery of the man may well date from that time. But his party colleagues, wiser by hindsight, now claim that Bhattacharjee's rediscovery of himself actually began much earlier. It happened, they say, in China. Bhattacharjee's first trip to one of the last communist countries in the world, especially his stay in Shanghai, is said to have planted the first seeds of reform in him. Bhattacharjee is said to have been carried away by the success of China's market socialism. The new hero was Deng Xiaoping and the new mantra was Deng's slogan, 'To get rich is glorious'. Deng was still frowned upon by his unreformed party, but Bhattacharjee, always quick to pick up an aphorism, loved the famous one from Deng, 'White cat, black cat, if it catches mice, it is a good cat.' It is possible that the Chinese connexion to the Buddha-II story is another make-believe to perpetuate the myth that communists can be reborn only in a communist climate. Much closer to the truth perhaps is that the new role, in a fast changing world, speeded the transformation. So much so that pundits and people are already comparing the 'long, dark age' of Jyoti Basu with the promise of Bhattacharjee's first months. Yet he was always known as a Basu protege. Two leaders could not be more different -- in background and style. Basu belonged to the generation of Indian leaders whose standing derived much from their upper middle class background and English-medium education -- and a few years in England to boot. Like Basu, Bhattacharjee graduated from Presidency College, but with a degree in Bengali honours, hardly the stuff for an ambitious public life. His uneasiness with English prompted an apocryphal story -- that he would skip the annual meetings of state information and culture ministers in New Delhi for fear of speaking in English. Also, unlike Basu, he was never a mass leader of his party, the CPI(M). When Basu first wanted to call it a day in 1997, Bhattacharjee, the party's obvious choice, was still unwilling to take over. 'It takes a lot to sit in that chair (of the chief minister),' he would say, 'I don't think I'm the right choice.' It now seems that the reformed Bhattacharjee won hearts, of commoners and businessmen alike, largely because of his differences from Basu. Basu's cultivated mannerisms and stand-offish air looked like fetid arrogance of power. As he led his party's campaign last May, Bhattacharjee was a refreshing image of a simple, homegrown leader, smiling, waving to crowds, patting children on the cheeks and speaking the language of his audience. 'I had known he could be arrogant,' said a bureaucrat who had worked with him for many years, 'but the man's change has impressed me.' So impressed were people with his unaffected manners and plain talk that they were prepared to listen to him when he began talking and acting tough. Much of what he has been saying in public was said by Basu too, particularly in the last few years. Bhattacharjee is asking government employees to come to work on time, school and college teachers to teach and doctors to attend hospital duty and treat their patients. Hospitals are places to groom trade unionists, health employees are told. And, if they do not perform, they will pay for non-performance. He is saying the government cannot continue to run loss-making public enterprises because delaying their inevitable closure would only prolong the pain. If an industrial unit is dying, he is telling industrial workers, their campaign to save it is no match for the economic forces that are leading to its death. The difference is nobody thought Basu could any longer do anything to change things. Bhattacharjee, on the other hand, has sent out the signal that he not only means business but will do whatever it takes to make it happen. He has already shown that his government will no longer repeat past mistakes of trying to stop reforms that are unstoppable. Hence the increase in hospital and electricity charges and school fees and the ban on private tuition for school teachers. Obviously, Bhattacharjee's battles have just begun. The important thing is that he has not buckled under pressure or shied away from the fights. His cabinet colleagues opposed the increases in hospital and electricity charges and some leaders of his own party struck down his attempt to introduce a law to prevent organised crime. He stuck to his guns. The ultimate test for Bhattacharjee will be to reform his own party. He seems to have passed the first tests. More and more he looks like he is emerging as the boss, making the party fall in line with him. Those who have known him for decades say his impetuosity can be both his strength and weakness. It was his emotional nature that prompted him to leave Basu's cabinet in a huff in 1993 and take refuge in writing a play, Dushamay (Bad Times), in the privacy of a room at the Nandan arts complex. He is still as passionate -- only his passion has reached out from poems and films to capital and reforms. He may still revel in party rhetoric at public meetings. But there is good enough reason to believe that he is honest about his new intentions. It may still not be the time to write his success story. But he has at least shown the courage to dare.