It feels good to be back writing on my space after a quite a long break. Just realised broke for really nothing better although. Ah... writing my heart out can be such a bliss. Thinking of what to write for a change isn't that tough this time. In fact that's what prompted to sign-in to my account. Well... the elections this time!!
Is there one is my first question. As though running from pillar to post fighting to practice my franchise wasn't enough, here's the headline that made me fume in all directions "Madhavan Nair's name missed in the electoral rolls." Wow that is exactly what I had to spot of all the zillion other articles in those 4 newspapers I read. At this rate, I am but forced to ponder, is there an election at all that we are witnessing right now?
If at all one might want to convince self saying it was just probably mine and Madhavan Nair's name that got missed out. Arey yaar, mishtakes to hota hai... But where are the ishoes bhai? Shoes yes, we can see aplenty this election. But where are the issues?
What is the Buzh-fight, as one my friend lamini calls it, going on? Is it a child's play? Or is it some wannabe trying to smart (oh yes we meet characters like these everyday!) gimmick on the vulnerable? Guys, come on grow up! How do you think a television debate will rescue you? Probably throwing shoes at each other definitely would.
Issues this year that have been completely neglected:
Where is my voter identity card?
There is a system for my ration card, there is a system for my passport, there is a system for my train pass, but where is the system for my voter identity card?
Where are the 26/11 victims?
Victims. Yes. all of them who were stranded in the hotels, some who lost their lives in the extremists' hands and majority of them who witnessed it live on television. Believe you me when I say the trauma was unbearable thanks to Barkha Dutt's poor journalism skills. But the fact remains, where are the victims? For all those contesting elections, I would like remind them not all of them are dead as yet.
Where is my job?
Job isn't the job in it's true sense. While i know few of friends being pink-slipped, not all of them. With marriage in the air ,most of them are busy planning their weddings, including me, but where is the essence of the true big fat Indian wedding? I can't imagine a 9-5 job post my marriage or neither can I plan my family after marriage. All thanks to the global recession. What happened at the G-20 summit? How many papers gave it the space IPL is receiving right now? Come on, as mature leaders aren't they supposed to milk the maximum of that cow. If our leaders did, well, that my dear, I would call issues. For chrissake, it was an economoholic who represented India (who was in turn representing another Italian) at the G-20 summit. Result: our man returns "satisfied." Of what? That having had talks with Brown and the black. Wah! Taj boliye... That's where you have bilateral talks with these two, at the G-20? Did anybody forget to remind him that it was the G 20 summit and the discussion was supposed to be on illicit funds parked in tax havens.
Where are the Muslims?
Yes. this is what has been happening in Godhra ever since the riots. Where is the issue? Buried with the Muslim bodies? I'm not talking of religion here, but the brutality. Gone are the days where practicing a particular religion there was because of the "fear the unknown." It is "fear of the other religion" today. But why? All thanks a particular group of extremists whom in our country are called politicians contesting from a huge national party.
If at all our elections this time was about any of these four issues, I wouldn't be writing this article. It's sad that we are probably witnessing the worst fought elections. If elections is an issue of might, to prove it wouldn't need more than a tug of war. Straining a rope and straining our existence isn't the same after all.
Let's re-open the Pandora's Box. Hope.
"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones were being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
(a speech by Arundhati Roy, "Confronting Empire,"concludes as above)
