The Back-Benchers' Blog

“Hey! What are you doing on the 13th, this Tuesday? ” “Man, talk of 12th night na, if 13th is a holiday?!” “Oh f**k that, if you bunk on just 12th, you get 10,11,12 AND 13th! Isn’t that CRAZY? Let’s go somewhere and chill out!” “Ah! That is cool, like a whole freaking Diwali before Diwali! LOL But not another beach haan? Please! Let’s do something else, OK?”

I would have been happy to lose a bet on whether the above were what 90% of the well-to-do youth in Maharashtra were saying, a week before the Maharashtra LA elections.

But I am sorry to have won. A 50-odd% of voting, combined with the fact that most of the lower-class sells votes for the much-needed chicken and beer, only rub it in deeper. A 60+% voting in some of the states of India making headlines is a blatant example.

On the other hand, “Bombai konachi?” “Mink release honar ki nahi?” “Should chance bars be permitted or not?” “Who is a real Maharashtrian?” “Whom should Thashi Saroor marry?” are the typical pre-election issues tossed around. And NOBODY talks of, say rain water harvesting, curbing water waste in cities, sustainability of urbanization; to name only a few of the real issues that lie gaping wide in front of us today.

IMHO, even though elections are really about choosing the least bad of the lot, the much needed public pressure is absent due to the fact that votes are ‘bought’ from most of the lower classes, and due to the apathy of the middle classes; the one which I started with.

And of the classes belonging to the Beyond-It-All aka the Forbes list et al, volumes have already been said in works like ‘Guru’ and ‘Rock N’ Rolla’!