“We have installed a water tank and improved facilities at Keoratala,” Mamata Banerjee tells Sandip Ray after the last rites of Tapan Sinha on Thursday evening. (Aranya Sen)

Caller, from NT-1 at Tollygunge: Will the chief minister be coming to pay his last respects? Or should we leave for Keoratala?

Called, in the CM’s secretariat at Writers’ Buildings: (Pause) “Why don’t you ask the filmmaker who is directing everything there?”

The filmmaker in question at the Tollygunge studio on Thursday afternoon was Mamata Banerjee. Her directorial venture was the last journey of filmmaker Tapan Sinha.

Two days after the politician-cum-artist-cum-poet turned singer on a reality show stage, she took directorial control of the 84-year-old’s last ride from his New Alipore home to the NT-1 studio to the burning ghat.

And yes, she was on song. If she went solo and patriotic on Tuesday evening at City Centre with Ay mere watan ke logo, on Thursday afternoon at Sinha’s New Alipore home she joined a chorus and went sentimental with Tagore’s Ei akashe amar mukti aloye aloye.

Having hit the high notes, she got busy orchestrating every move of the funeral procession and shutting out Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Team Buddha played down the no-show at New Alipore and NT-1. “It is not mandatory for the chief minister to attend every occasion. He sent a condolence message and a wreath,” said Dilip Chakraborty, the information and cultural affairs secretary.

Mamata had done it by remote control (read, Partha Chatterjee’s cellphone) when Paritosh Sen had died last October. The strong Trinamul presence had forced the chief minister to stay away from Lalit Kala Akademi, where the veteran artist’s body had been kept.

On Thursday, Mamata was more hands-on. She was taking no chances with the tribute TRPs for Tapan Sinha, a popular filmmaker and a board member of the CM’s beloved Nandan.

Soon after word trickled out that Sinha had succumbed at CMRI after a prolonged illness, Mamata and Co. moved to cover all flanks. Arup Biswas, the MLA from Tollygunge, held fort at the hospital and then the New Alipore home of his neighbour. Mamata strategically moved in there, bouquet in hand, tribute on lips.

“Tapan Sinha is an institution. He was not only a great director but also a great human being. His death will create a vacuum in the film industry. It’s a very sad day for Bengal,” she told the filmmaker’s son Anindya.

Mamata then moved from where he lived to where he worked. At NT-1, she stood teary-eyed as the Tollywood presence thinned fast. “We were here to pay tribute to a beloved veteran of the industry, but this has turned into a Trinamul show,” rued a veteran actor.

Mamata was not done yet. The last act awaited her at Keoratala, where she played host to all those arriving to pay their last respects. “Oder chair deye... jol deye,” she ordered.

She even donned the Calcutta South MP’s hat and tried to show off some new features of the burning ghat to Sandip Ray.

Wonder what Tapan Sinha would have called this Mamata reality show — Aponjon or Atanka?