I Have Voted, And So Are You
Bhaio aur behno, the summer in India has given us a spectacle like no other. Black money flowing around, pointless discussions between fanatic supporters on the social media and terribly distasteful ads being bombarded at us everytime we switch on the television or the radio. But, that’s enough about the IPL.
As the morning of 30th April dawned, I slapped the snooze button on my alarm clock like it were Arvind Kejriwal’s face and even thought about throwing ink and eggs at it. Sleep was more important than democracy at that time. But in a short time, I was walking to the polling booth where long queues of Gujjus were already forming. The last time I had seen so many Gujjus lining up, I was standing in line to enter a Navratri garba ground. As I awaited my turn to vote, I cast my mind back on the election campaign.
The 2014 Lok Sabha election campaigns had been, for the lack of a better word, disgusting. Words like ‘butcher’, ‘dogs’ were thrown around so freely I’m surprised that PETA didn’t get offended. Almost any idiot with a computer could and had written pieces on how people should vote. (Yes, I get the irony. But the joke’s on you. I wrote this on my laptop ha ha). Words like ‘secular’, ‘empowerment’, ‘inclusive growth’ and ‘Manish Tewari’ lost all credibility. It was a slugfest of the worst order, accentuated by Captain-Aircraft-Takeoff-Noise-Man AKA Sri Sri President Prime Minister Laura Lasoon Arnab Goswami. His primetime show ‘The Newshour’, which the Guinness Book has certified as the most loud and obnoxious thing in the world (Previous record held by Govinda’s fashion sense), primarily consists of
- Participants getting a chance to speak and saying ‘Arnab, Arnab, please let me, Arnab, one second, Arnab, Arnab’ more often than Arnab’s wife during sex
- Participants not getting a chance to speak, fondly thinking about how being squished in a Mumbai local with a fisherman’s sweaty armpit in their face would probably have been a better way to spend the evening.
Rounding up this coterie are other English journalists like Rajdeep AKA Decaf Arnab and Barkha Dutt, AKA Better Hair Arnab, some Hindi news channels who also deliver hard-hitting stories on ‘Modi’s Lucky Pen’ and ‘Is Ashwatthama Still Alive’ (Side note, he is. He goes by the name Tiger Shroff) and regional news channels which Raj Thackeray calls ‘GET OUT OF MAHARASHTRA, YOU ‘[insert anything Virat Kohli has said here]’. There is also the old guard, Doordarshan, which hardly gets viewers anymore. ‘Hey, at least we have a bigger audience than Youngistaan’ said a Doordarshan executive wearing a ‘Suck It Jacckky Bhagnani’ T-Shirt.
The election has featured more PM candidates than promises made by Poonam Pandey to go nude. But the nation generally agrees that there are just a couple of real heavyweights. On one hand, we have this guy who is accused of never giving interviews to news channels. You can’t blame him, how many times is he going to give the same interview?
Guy: Let’s talk about Development
Interviewer: 2002
G: But, electricity…
I: 2002
G: But, jobs…
I: 2002, ANSWER ME, 2002!!!!
Guy quietly decides to have the interviewer’s phone tapped
His major opponent is someone who has been living off his family name, has absolutely no clue what he is doing and has seemingly selected a career for himself where he is a huge misfit. No, it is not Uday Chopra. This guy says he should be made the PM due to the fact that his father, mother, grandmother, dog (AKA Digvijay Singh) have made great sacrifices for the nation. It’s absurd right. I mean, even Sunil Shetty failed to get his father’s job in Hera Pheri. Do you seriously consider yourself better than the guy who made the country dance to ‘Kya Ada Kya Jalwe Tere Paaro?’
Although the entire country’s opinion has been divided among these two and it is one way or the other whichever way you slice it, there has emerged a third option. One, who calls himself an anarchist like the Joker, shuts down the city on his whims like Bane and keeps asking irrelevant questions like the Riddler. He would probably be Batman’s worst nightmare as he would keep questioning how Bruce Wayne became so rich and label him an ‘Ambani agent’. He had great support a few months back but due to his shenanigans, he has managed to lose that too along with his mind. In the space of a few months, this guy has gone from a fresh-faced first year engineer with hopes and dreams to the unshaven, rude, boorish 30-year old final year ‘student’ just looking for his next weed fix.
My reverie is broken when finally I get a turn to cast my vote. I duly sign the register, get my finger inked and walk to the EVM. Pressing the button, I feel a strange sense of relief as I will no longer have to feel guilty about changing the channel when the ‘Jaago Re’ ads or Satyamev Jayate appear on the screen. It’s a liberating experience, similar to the one Indian uncles feel while walking around in their VIPs on Goa beaches. Let’s face it; ‘Vote karna chahiye’ of the Indian voter is the ‘Attempt toh sare questions karne chahiye’ of the Indian engineer. A very basic thing to do, but if you don’t do it, you’re more useless than that thing on Jairam Ramesh’s head. Yes, I’m looking at you Mumbai and especially the women of SoBo who wear shorts even in the winter. I’m looking at you ladies very closely, drooling slightly in the process. As I step out of the polling booth, there is a slight commotion as a 19-year old first time voter refuses to apply the blue dot on her finger. ‘Pink ya green mein dikhao na bhaiyya’, she tells the voting officer. It takes all kinds to make a democracy, it seems.
A ferocious election campaign has left me with a hangover, although I have no idea what that is because Gujarat, sob, dry state, sob. Yes, I know all the ‘wet’ states are laughing at us. We’ll just wipe our tears with the spare 1000 rupee notes we always have lying around. Although the campaign has been a dirty one, full respect for the 11 million strong team of the Election Commission which upholds India’s democratic ideals. This team is entrusted with a job of a teacher who every single day, tries to control a classroom full of unruly brats. But, they have executed this task to the best of their abilities. It is at this moment that you realize that governments will come and go, but the idea of India will stay on forever.