In a country where elections can be won
through sheer money and muscle power, it is indeed sad that the electorate can
be easily brainwashed into accepting bribes of all tangible and intangible hues
to keep them in power. Power and pelf have replaced performance and planning as
quintessential tools to winning the popular vote, but more importantly this is
a lamentation of the loss of integrity and rectitude in our society.
It was the onset
of yet another spring
But this year was
different
The air had a
distinct sting
A reminder to
change and reorient
Yes, here came
again the quinquennial event
The state
assembly elections
Democracy’s test
of conscience if it is to be meant
Where the
citizenry had one lone shot at course corrections.
The sleepy little
hamlets that lay at the foothills
Of the
magnificent Western Ghats
Ushered in the thrills
Of the new
potential upstart
A youngster, an
IAS and teacher by heart
Who came up in
life by virtue of toil
Was sincere,
honest, intelligent and smart
And importantly
was a son of the soil
Tired of yet another
lustrum
And yet another
disastrous tenure
These little
hamlets, presenting a tiny simulacrum
Of state-wide
consensus could no longer endure
And pinned their
hopes on this amateur
To thwart the incumbent
MLA, which seemed
to be the only available cure
In short, for
change the people were hell-bent
Day by day the newcomer
grew in strength
He made all the
right noises
He toured his
constituency across its length
And breadth,
pressed flesh and listened to voices
Offered solutions
and waxed eloquent on the importance of choices
While the veteran
incumbent continued to lag
On the trail,
short by several paces
But deep inside
he knew the thing was in the bag
Three weeks prior
to D-Day
His claque who
had gone to take stock
Said that it
appeared he no longer held sway
With the masses,
the newcomer was the talk
Of the towns and
villages, cementing his place like a rock
Alarmed, the MLA
decided enough of watching brief
And legged it for
the constituency HQ with his flock
He could no
longer trust his own belief
The sights and
images of his whistle-stop tour
Rankled him and
caused much discomfiture
It was apparent
that misgovernance would no longer inure
His folks to
unwavering fealty, the realization sunk, he wasn’t a permanent fixture
On the other hand,
they were more receptive to the amateur’s overture
Whose presence
was made felt in the imagery
He seemed like a
formidable rival, who had grown in stature
And was making it
a contest through sheer drudgery
The MLA had seen
enough
He decided to get
down to brass tacks
The route that
lay ahead was tough
And he could no
longer afford to be lax
He conjured up a
grand campaign putting to use all the kickbacks,
Laundered black
money and extorted excesses
Plus a manifesto
laden with roorbacks
Misquoted numbers
and made up successes
The newcomer
however was not to be daunted
He had nothing to
lose
He campaigned the
right way, neither much vaunted
Nor low-key,
instead focusing on putting across his views -
Expose corruption
and the party’s abject failures to address issues
And drive home
the game-plan on how he would address the same
For he knew the
only way to cook the MLA’s goose
Was to put his
own skin into the game.
As a first step,
he laid out a clear framework
For a transparent,
corruption-free and well-oiled administration
And announced a
slew of precise targeted measures
The first of
which was immediate liquor prohibition
“Do you want
another tenure of disastrous years”,
He effectively
exhorted – “And then subject yourself to another regrettable post-mortem
Or give me a
chance, a chance to someone who is ‘supposedly’ wet behind the ears
But can completely
overhaul the system”?
Over the course
of the next fortnight
The rival camps
hit feverish heights
The MLA flexed
his muscle with all his might
His sycophant
underlings engaged the amateur to petty fights,
Concocted calumnious
stories, and painted him as a philanderer
Bush telegraphed doctored
sleazy sound bites
And roped in partisan
media houses to trigger a campaign of slander
In attempts to
ensnare him under unmerciful spotlights
Not one to be
easily browbeaten
The newcomer
upped the magnitude
Of his campaign
and tried to sweeten
All the
ad-hominem that was spewed
He viewed it as a
manifestation of his opposition’s disquietude
And never once
reacted resorted to any under-the-belt tactic
A testament to
his remarkable rectitude
Win or not, he
wasn’t going to let it end anti-climactic
The MLA had
several tricks up his sleeve
He whipped up the
caste rhetoric in generous measure
Of his
unfulfilled promises, he begged for a reprieve
Instead pointed
out to paltry successes and the pressure
At his level
which gave him no pleasure
But said he would
always be the right man for the job
Self-aggrandizing
himself as his people’s real treasure
Whereas the
newcomer would merely be a temporary heartthrob
However, to the
people, this time
‘Twice bitten thrice shy’ seemed to be
theme
His manifesto
didn’t generate much interest
Concessions for
women, Mid-day meal scheme
For school
children, Subsidies for farmers, all rang hollow
And so did a
plethora of other legacy wares hawked at the hustings
He was clearly
dispossessed of his halo
And the final
nail had been hammered on his people’s trusting.
The last few days
ended in a flourish
The two parties
sparred for front page reportage
Either one hoping
to get the other to perish
Scoring last
minute brownie points and political mileage
But the opinion
polls were skewed to the newcomer’s advantage
Despite his
meagre wherewithal and bankrolling
As it boiled down
to the final showpiece of the grand stage -
The sacred count
on the day of polling
Hours before the
dawn of voting day
In the wee hours when
darkness lurks
The sleeping dogs
that lay
Got to the
night’s work
A well-organized
network
Loaded with the
necessary ammunition
Having done the
arduous spade work
For the agenda,
embarked on its execution
Between half past
three and half past four
The citizenry
were woken abrupt
By an anonymous
packet flung at their door
Causing a thud
calculated to interrupt
And arouse its
sleeping inmates and disrupt
The mindset they
had long begotten
The package also
bore a paper slip designed to corrupt
The best among
the unblemished and the unrotten.
The message read
– “This is just the beginning,
If you know whom
to vote for. It’s bad
That we are late,
but as a promise there is more in the offing”
The unraveled package
revealed a neat little wad
Of crisp notes, a
saree and to complete the triad
And the closing
act of the homestretch
A little bottle
of the finest no one had ever had
Tailored to suit the
male half of the sketch.
It is at this
tantalizing juncture
That the reader
rightfully questions
What he can
expect to conjecture
Should he be
optimistic? Should he be tense?
Or should he
simply take off his punctilious lens
And stop
subjecting the narrator to this scrutiny
And for peace’s
sake abandon any silent preference
While leave the
man of verse to carve out the newcomer’s destiny
To the most
inspiring of scripts
Seldom has there
been a fairy tale ending
And so shall in
this case be no rescripts
For there is no
scope for truth-bending
The climax that
is most heart-rending
Is the one where
the rawness of life is relayed
Unalloyed, verisimilitudinous
without any blending
A strong heart
reacquaints itself with reality, without much aid
An insufferable
society wallows in a putrid runnel
Of depraved
ideals and moral turpitude
Saintly wisdom
passed down ages is blasted into shrapnel
When streaks of
deracination have deeply imbued
Till time sows
the seeds of rectitude
Waves of
misfortune will raze mercilessly
Over past glory
decayed into desuetude
Meliorism dies its
death slowly and painfully
On that note, I
would rather
Not break the sad
news with a feather touch
But let the reader
put two and two together
And not flog the
dead horse too much
The good ending
for which I am in search
Will evade yet
again, for truth is brutally bitter
And always knocks
velleities off the perch
With that I cease
my lamentable witter.
