The Voting Season Is Here

You can't miss "election season" if you are in Kolkata right now. Even if you are the reluctant voter, the politically disinclined or the stoic observer - the bhote gets under your skin one way or the other. Add to it the fact that this time around you aren't queuing up just to decide who's going to keep your sewers from clogging or basements from flooding but the people who will invent more lowly ways to stall the proceedings of the Lower House of the Parliament for the coming 5 years and the exercise of adult suffrage starts seeming solemn, even intimidating to some extent.

Loka Sabha elections have a flavour of their own. People clueless and lost in the middle of the road know when they have stepped into a different constituency by simply following the change in graffiti on the walls during campaign season. And talking of walls - if your house is located any place offering reasonable visibility your walls are doomed. The advantages of this pentannual exercise is that you won't have to spend for their white-washing and you won't get confused between candidates on the day of voting ( i.e vote for any candidate except the one whose name defaced your walls. Many residents have already made that threat known and it has worked).

Another aspect of elections is what is commonly known as "gola-baaji" or slogan-baaji. Just a month to the election-day and leaders start raining from nowhere onto the make-shift podium at your paraa-more, howling inanities in the name of political speeches like they have been doing from time immemorial. And, what's more? There is no escape from their cacophonic propaganda. Even if you have an exam the next day or being just a unsuspecting passerby, chances are you will be sucked into the jostling crowd, elbowed till your ribs are sore and fed to your ears the efficacy of an "inclusive agenda". If you have not taken sides even after this you can expect people coming to your house at all odd hours to make sure their voter-list is in perfect order and then proceed to promise the moon to you albeit in small packets. At the end of the day you will feel pity for all these poor souls braving the heat and humidity to paint walls and plant flags for some person/party who won't even care to shake their hands if they win. Just a "bijoy michhil" (victory march) will be their fill of festivities and that will be all.

I will go cast my maiden vote to honour these tireless individuals even if they lionize perfect hoodlums with their sheer toil and sweat this election season. Only that I might not agree with their party's candidature and choose to vote for someone else won't be a rankling issue, I am sure. After all it is not for nothing that the "Voter is King" in a democracy.