my experiments with voting..

I travelled 12 hours , in a bus , to be part of a collective 'dance' , the dance of democracy , as the times of India journalists will inform you. Needless to say , I was pretty kicked about it..
.. but it wasn't ..well all that i expected..
For one.. there was soo much hype to vote, vote..."yesss finally my name is on the electorate ", super joy.. that the actual beep after the vote was cast was like a real jarring crash to reality. Here i kept thinking that I am an element of change , a force to reckon with..
I went to the booth at 9 am.. the booth was relatively empty, I didn't have a voter's card so had to search for my name in this booklet.. realised (a) my name had been spelt kutelli (b) my brother was a certain aklavy , his actual name being ekalavya.. (c) my parents were not on the list...
Nevertheless I was determined to cast my vote..
I knew who I was gonna vote.. we had discussed it on the journey to the booth.. a man with a mixed religion background , belonging to a decent enough party , and my dad informed me that I had actually bumped his car , in the days I was learning to drive.. Ahem... I think these were all reasons enough to VOTE VOTE !!
But the smirking and the fake patronising smiles of the ppl at the booth can be unnerving..
My voting number was 2 . yup single digit voting serial number.. where ppl had numbers in 4 digits .. so I kept having to clarify.. ' number kya hai..?" 'do' ... "number kay hai..bahar se number likhwa ke lao" '2' ..."arey bahar se...." " AREY BHAI NUMBER T- W -O two hai!!!"


once that was out of the way, I got marked .. unfortunately on the middle finger of my left hand , and I thought to myself..' damn ! middle finger , there goes a great facebook profile pic opportunity!'
then the moment of reckoning.. i voted.. there were soo many candidates.. 18 !! and i was informed about just 3!! how do i know one of the independant candidates is not more vote worthy?? but i didn't have much time to think.. u go in ..search the symbol and beep..
the ballot is not exactly the place to ponder..

Later in the day , i went again to the booth..with my brother this time.. I told him that there are 18 candidates..and he wanted to go home do a google search on all of them.. and it made sense coz.. I do wish i had made more of an informed decision..
I told him that his serial number was ONE and to let them know without losing his calm..
Dad came along too to see if his name has magically appeared in the voters list..It hadn't.

Now the second time round , i noticed something amazing.. the people.. there were grandparents with there grandchildren showing them how it's done , first time voters all huffy ,self important and LOST. The veterans who were sure who would win and were condescending of all other candidates.. and also the colour of the season-orange. yup there were couples in matching shades of vermillion, uncles wearing a gaudy shade of saffron , and the suave guy who wore peach with orange checks!! and a sardarji who wore an orange turban and his wife carried an orange carry bag ! Amazing , I thought , I did a uick once over of my family, me in pink , my brother in black , and my dad in his yellow three fourths , atleast we stuck to our individual identities.:)

I voted, I wish I had been better informed , I wish I had more to vote for , but I am glad i could vote against the party whose ideals clash with my own ... and as they say in the adverts.. I will vote against every thing that is AGAINST the betterment of my country, so that hopefully someday my children can vote FOR the the future , and hopefully next time my father can vote.