Wednesday, March 18, 2009

My First Vote : Reminiscing the election that mattered to me…

It was finally the year, the one I mattered officially… by getting one more year older I earned the right to choose my next leader for the highest office. I was excited, a sense of fresh hope in my veins, a sense of participation in a bigger cause. It’s akin to when you make your first rupee and bring it home and mom glows like you have just cleared the family debt. The feeling of power, after all, I am someone who influences who can lead and represent going forward….

In my early teens, I was a goofball, too much sports, studies when exams were around the corner, wander the streets to play with any other kids a game of cricket. All that appealed to me, where the 3 make shift stumps we came up with either by drawing them on a wall or by unraveling a thick broom and planting them on a soil bank, we had improvised every possible means to come up with stumps, another favorite was any home that had vertical beams in its gates. I wouldn’t call myself a hopeless nomad, but my father figured it out that I need to be reigned in, it was time to put some culture, some science, some discipline and time managements and efficiency in me. But he was careful about it, he didn’t approach me and say “Son, pack the stumps and bats, get the books rolling, or come over here let me teach accounting and ledgers or here let me teach you the nuances of a budget”.

He simply came over and said, “did you check out what Kapil Dev had to say”, I was curious, pre-Sachin, he was my favorite cricketer. I figured there will be something in it that makes sense to me. I don’t remember the contents of it, but I remember not regretting reading the article. My dad continued “Look, the newspaper is a cool thing. It has something interesting and useful for all ages and keeps you informed. It could be trivial or huge… it could tell you what’s going on in Delhi or your next street. I don’t want you to read everything, but read the sports section, you will be hooked onto this thing soon.” I didn’t think ‘Whatever Dad’… but I did think ‘I am not sure this will work’. But it did and I haven’t stopped thanking my dad for getting me hooked on the newspaper.

What started as a fetish for sports columns soon became a monster. I realized soon enough that they ain’t writing about cricket everyday. I slowly browsed other sections and soon enough I used it as a daily morsel for my information craving.

This was all perfect timing, by the time I became an avid fan of the newspaper, I was hooked on the politics section and the coming election. I knew my state’s political parties, their symbols, their partners, their achievements, their letdowns and their history. I even knew who was running for office in the 5 closest constituencies, I was absorbed and knee deep in the vagaries of that election. I was prepared.

As the Election Day approached the heightened tenor of partisan attacks and political wringing were beginning to nauseate me. I started to imagine, what it would be to be an operative, guys who organize the stuff for their leaders, don’t they ever get numb by the process. There was quite a bit of improvisation mixed in along the way, your favorite filmy numbers would be manipulated to sing in the praises of the candidates, when it wasn’t boring or causing a headache it was entertaining and funny.

Election day, it was as if I was taking a finals exam, I had an unease and tension about me, though about a month prior I had finalized on the candidate I was voting for, I had now started rooting for the candidate, the person symbolized a hope I had for the next 5 years, the hope of realizing the policies that were promised over the last 5 months, the ones that appealed to me and the ones that I related to and even yearned for. The moment of reckoning came, I exercised the power that I had, I voted, I am now part of the process that’s going to elect the candidate for the highest office.

Along came the results, the candidate I had voted for lost, but his party won the overall majority. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or not, I didn’t vote based on which party he was in, but what my research of the candidate, the convictions and the promises that were made by the individual. I was not sure now, that despite his party winning the overall election, my constituency was going to be helped much. So I felt a little weird.

The next morning, back to my old saddle, the sofa and the corner of the sofa that I liked, the newspaper back in my hand and a strong cup of coffee, I was in my comfort zone. I took a moment to think of the journey I had been on, it was like a roller coaster, from not knowing much about politics or caring about the government to researching on candidates I hadn’t known and furthering that effort and participating in a cause that made sense.

As exciting as it was to be part of the process, I soon realized nothing much changed around me over the next several months, the streets were the same, the potholes were still there, there was still that ugly unfenced statue in the middle of a 6 road intersection, there was still that rusty taste in my water, that same frequency or lack of local buses, the same level of crime and burglary. There was still that wine shop in front of that temple, there was still the same old city. The election that took me on a ride of hope let me down on its results. We the people of my constituency were still the same and we faced the same issues. Lack of governance or lack of caring by my elected officials had left my home district as ugly as it ever was….

I didn’t know what exactly we could do anymore, they say the people have the power to change things and that change is by voting for change. I am not sure I saw those symptoms in my district or my state or my country. My vote was just another number that the voting officials counted and reported. Those tins of papers not only held millions of my countrymen’s choice but also their hope, not only did they held their anger towards indifference but also their quest for change and now along with so many other generations of folks my vote stood there… united with others in it’s despair, pain, longing. My vote now is a piece of paper that will be shredded or fed to the cows. It is as important as that piece of rust on that garbage can in my street.

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