By Rohit Inani:
It was late afternoon. He took time off from work, and resting his back against a wooden post he was humming away old Bachchan songs with a gentle smile showing on his face when he tried to sing harder, closing his eyes in between-
“One of my friends decided to contest elections on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket and I helped him through everything. He lost three times but managed to win the next elections. I was delighted. But after sometime he chose a completely different path and didn’t do the work that he was meant to do. I tried to talk to him but he was in a different world. All these years I helped him with everything, hoping things that would be become possible if he won and worked. He changed, like a lizard changes colour. He back stabbed me, you know. What made him change all of a sudden?”
Elections 2014?
“Well, I don’t know who am I going to vote but it is possible that I may not vote. Who should I vote, tell me. Congress has been in power for six decades and with an experience of six decades at hand they cannot control the price rise. Corruption and our ever increasing population just add to the rise. Subsidizing cooking gas at the time of elections won’t solve anything, you know. And I don’t trust the BJP with peace and development. How can one man change a country? Such a big and poor country.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is too young to run the nation from the centre. Hmm, you see, I don’t know what I am going to do. I don’t have time to give them time to prove themselves again and again. I have suffered and seen enough. Everybody is feeling like I am.”
Democracy?
“I don’t know what you mean by that. I understand that we all have to go and vote. We elect the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister, and the MLA, who, I learn, has to take care of us who go out and vote. But neither of the three ever made me feel I or my family was taken care of; what do they have in America? The same system? I heard they are just 17 crores and the best in the world.”
‘Well, my family has been anti-Congress since the beginning of democracy in this country. My grandfather voted against them, my father voted against them, and I have always voted against them. You see, these days these elections don’t make any difference because all the parties contesting follow the same ideology after forming government at the centre. AAP is too young to lead India right now. I don’t know if Modi can deliver his promises after becoming the PM. He is not like Lal Bahadur Shastri or Morarji Desai. To tell the truth, nobody is.’
‘I am thirty years old. I fix punctured tyres for a living. I have been doing this since the time I first voted. Have seen many elections, many campaigns, and many promises. I used to earn about 150 rupees per day when I started and I earn almost the same today. Prices have risen sharply and jobs are hard to find these days. I have a brother in law who is fairly educated and works as a watchman to earn his bread and butter. Yes, I will vote this time like I have all these years. I believe things will change. This is why they ask us to go out and vote. I am ready to give them another chance.’
I worked all my life in the Maharashtra Forest Department. There were many corrupt officers and bureaucrats working as directed more corrupt ministers. I worked honestly all my life. Now they deny me even my share of pension. I have to visit the office again and again to ask for my pension that is my right. Vilasrao Deshmukh ran a terrible government that violated environmental regulations. Actually I am fed up of this electoral system you call democracy. Each time I went out and voted, corruption escalated as years passed. Anyway, I will not live to see another government.’