:: Cyrus Broacha

Tale of an idiot at a polling booth

By Cyrus Broacha

May 03 : Idiot: A person who doesn’t cast his/her vote.

Bigger Idiot: A person who waits for hours in the hot sun in a long queue to cast his/her vote.

Biggest Bloody Idiot Fool: A person who dissuades another person who is quite frankly fed-up of standing in the sun in the long queue to cast his/her vote from leaving without casting the vote.

(These definitions are provided by Wren and Martin and Toby, on page six of their book titled, Guide For the Asthamatic voters.)

On April 30, 2009, I, ladies and gentlemen, was guilty of being a biggot bloody idiot fool, (also known as the biggest bloody idiot fool), you see.

I too stopped defectors who were fainting in the sun and forced them against the run of play, against the advice of medical experts (who also made up the line), to hang in there and cast their votes.

The day began as usual at 5.30 am with the wife kicking me in the jaw. This happens not necessarily only because of a lack of love, but is one of the consequences of life partners sleeping in diagonally opposite directions in the same bed. After waking up I decided to chalk out my plan of acting for voting that day.

My first act was to spend the first four hours doing nothing. I find this always allows me to get in the right frame of mind for the rest of the day where I plan to do nothing. By 10 in the morning my parents and I made the long walk to our polling booth, something we have been doing for over 15 years.

In 43° Celsius, and a sun roaring for more, and after a nine-and-a-half-minute ardous walk, in which we braved idle watchmen, unemployed drivers and errant motorbikes, also known as the criminals of Malabar Hill, we reached our polling both only to be told it was closed for renovation. Hence our polling booth had been shifted, without any warning, at the very last minute.

Sympathisers who were dying by the wayside due to the heat, told us that the change in venue was mentioned in the voting sheets of the various candidates that were posted under our doors. These poor but well-intentioned souls forgot the Golden Rule of the Indian Voter — you never read the voting sheets under any circumstances.

Driven by our sense of faith, fuelled with egalitarian principles and democratic ideals, we began the four-minute detour to the new polling booth.

Around us the elderly and the extremely light skinned were dropping like flies. With great trepidation we entered the building compound that housed our new polling booth. What I am going to reveal next will shock your epidermis off you. The polling booth was non-airconditioned. Yup, you read correctly, the polling booth in Malabar Hill, home of the chief minister, was non-airconditioned. As this disturbing news spread like wild fire, people started panicking.

Ms Kapoor fainted immediately, and mind you, this hasn’t happened to her since Smirti Irani walked out of Balaji’s serials. Mr Rao started shaking with indignation. Mr Srivastav wanted to convene an emergency meeting and many, many wanted out.

It was here that I came to the party. Rather, it was here that I came to every party’s rescue. I cajoled and comforted my fellow affluent victims — sometimes ordering them, sometimes coaxing them back into the line. A line that was, mind you, non-airconditioned.

As one by one they finished voting, I watched them point at me and say something. I read their lips, "There he is, the Biggest Bloody Idiot Fool".