SO NOW WE KNOW...

- We like our old leaders to be affable and bearded, not arrogant and bald.
- We like our young leaders to be dimpled and smiling, not demented and shouting.
- We like our party to meander and dither, not maraud and destroy.
- We like our government to be hesitant and, maybe, ineffectual-at-times, but DEFINITELY NOT hate-spewing and intolerant.

Just as it is silly to be sycophantic to a dynasty, it is even sillier to hit out at somebody because of his/her lineage, even after that somebody has shown maturity, decisiveness and grace-under-pressure.

Just as it is good to transform your state into a model of industrial development, it is not-so-good to boast all the time elsewhere because we have not forgotten your mass-murdering past.

Just as it is stupid to dress-shabbily-and-wear-chappals all the time and be a Bengali drama-queen, it is far more stupid to be the king for three decades and treat your subjects shabbily and lord over an increasingly barren state.

And the Indian voter is neither silly nor stupid, and has seen through braggarts and opportunists. We prefer our inclusive-inbetween-Centre to the rigid-rabid-Right or the looking-backward-Left. We are like this only, and Jai Ho to that.

LANGUAGE: BRIDGE OR BARRIER?

In this election, I have a new role. Like thousands of other ‘gormint’ servants, I have been given ‘election duty’. We are attending training sessions organized by the Election Commission to prepare ourselves for V-day (voting day). These sessions (two so far, more to come) are exhaustive. And exhausting. Our instructors have been lecturing us about our duties, and demonstrating how to successfully operate that Extremely Very-confusing Machine (a.k.a the Electronic Voting Machine).

Only, there’s a snag. The whole training exercise is being done in Marathi. And there are a substantial number of hapless would-be presiding/assistant/polling officers who are looking more and more goggle-eyed, unable to understand most of what is going on.

Including me. On the first day, I tried earnestly to follow the lecture, grasping at a word here and there, asking my colleague (who is a daughter of this soil) to explain the I-M-P (studentspeak for ‘important points’). Today, faced with an instructor who rattled off instructions from a written sheet at breakneck speed in chaste Marathi, I gave up the struggle.

Repeated requests to the instructors to either explain in both Hindi and Marathi or arrange for alternative training for us unfortunate non-Marathi types were met with refusal, either point-blank or polite. One instructor asked the Maharashtrians in the class to raise their hands. Satisfied that at least 70% were ‘from here only’, he smugly said that lectures would continue in Marathi. Some of the Maharashtrian trainees seconded them vociferously. Nobody bothered to apply the reverse logic: since everybody, even the Maharashtrians, understands Hindi/English, why not ALSO explain in Hindi/English, along with Marathi? One brilliant person turned on me and asked: “If this was in YOUR Kolkata, wouldn’t the training be in Bengali?”

Maybe it would. Maybe over there, too, boorish guardians of Bengali would speak only in their mother tongue, ignoring requests for co-operation from non-Bengali attendees. But that would have been wrong, too. And two wrongs can never make a right. And excuse me, why are you pushing me to a corner of the country? I am an Indian, free to live in any part of the nation. Learning the local language and respecting the local culture will obviously help me to assimilate better. But since I (and many of the others) haven’t grasped all the technical fine points of the language yet, wouldn’t co-operation been a more generous and sensible thing to offer than refusal? After all, the purpose of these sessions is to train all of us adequately for the job-at-hand? Will that purpose be served if the language is Marathi-only?


The questions remain un-discussed owing to the language barrier. And the barrier left us floundering, till somebody threw us lifelines in the shape of thick yellow handbooks in English. There was also a young instructor, our linguistic saviour, who finally came and explained the intricacies of the EVM in Marathi, Hindi and English. Dexterously alternating between the three ‘tongues’, he used language as it should be: to communicate, to build bridges and to bring smiles of comprehension in the faces of his listeners.

INK IS IN

The ink on your index finger is suddenly IN. Because it IN-dicates that you have exercised your right to vote. Because it shows your IN-clination: you care for the future of this nation. Because it is an assertion of your citizenship – your identity as an IN-dian.

In the elections this time, because of the model code of conduct enforced by the Election Commission, there has a marked absence of posters, pamphlets, wall-paintings, sloganeering; all the loud and colourful accompaniments to the political juggernaut.

Instead, there has been a lot of visibility given to citizen groups and NGOs like Jaago Re, groups of people asking other people to come and vote. Celebrities are urging us to use the finger (not oily-smiley politicians mock-humbly begging for votes with folded hands). The inky finger has become the hottest fashion accessory.

The first round voting turnout was 58-62% - not bad. The rural populace, stoical, suffering, yet upright, has always exercised its franchise. It is the urban upwardly-mobile class that was accused of distancing itself from the democratic duty of voting. The designer sunglasses and the headphones clamped to the ears blocked the sights and sounds of the Real India. Now that the upward mobility has been halted in the tracks somewhat, perhaps there is time to look at the bigger picture.

The picture that includes all of India – the hut and the high-rise, the yuppy and the yokel. We will not be able to change this picture substantially, but, if we vote, we will be able to put our own mark on it.

So, let’s go vote. But let us think before we ink. And let us not forget that voting should be a matter of INFORMED CHOICE. Therein lies the true worth and power of that tiny dot of ink.