It's Election time!!!

Today, I cast vote for the first time in my life. It’s not that I had been ineligible to wield the only power provided to me by the democracy of our country earlier. Just that I did not have my election id and every time the election process happened, I was invariably outside my home town – either in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Darjeeling, Chennai – etc etc – I have indeed been a frequent flier (or, ‘rail’er?). Finally, after almost 7 years of being eligible and casually frittering away this super-power, I finally set my foot down.

There were exactly 17 candidates – only No. 2 and No. 4 being the major contenders. The others were I guess dummy or were just vying to prove their nationality in politics. The last candidate was a genuinely independent candidate, though I guess, he just filed his nomination cause he had Rs. 10,000 to spare or ‘cause he wanted his name to come out in the newspapers – or maybe he is genuinely sympathetic to the cause of the people and wanted to bring forth a change. The entire repertoire of symbols was hilarious to say the least – other than the customary national and local party symbols, there was a burning fire, a clock, an elephant, a cricket bat, a farmer and what not. I glanced through the entire list searching frantically for a particular symbol – not to vote, but to have fun. One of my friends told me that one of the independent candidates in his constituency brandished a symbol of Batman. I frantically searched for the capped crusader of Gotham City, but sigh maybe the capped crusader thought that he should give my constituency a miss – well, I guess then we do not have anyone to shield us from the antics of the Riddler or the evil of the Joker. I still did not lose hope and kept roving through the list, if not Batman, at least Superman or He-man – or at least the Wonderwoman – nope – no one – just no one – all the super heroes and heroines gave our constituency a miss. I can’t blame them; I guess they just got confused with the delimitation.

I must say, the entire hullabaloo about the indelibility of the election ink seemed completely farcical. As soon as it was applied on my finger, I just rubbed it; the ink gave way and lo and behold I was theoretically eligible for another round of voting!!! (I used Quink ink after coming back home, just to take this pic)

Jokes apart – the entire process got over in 2-3 minutes flat and I finally came out beaming – patting myself on the back for finally being able to prove my citizenship ; being able to contribute something for the cause of our nation’s democracy and also for finally being able to lose my 'poll'itcal virginity!!!