Poojo's Pre-Poll Post

Another edition of the Indian General Elections comes to town. Another year that leaves you with choices that aren't choices at all - choices between the devil and the deep blue sea - conversations that veer around "the devil you know to the devil you don't". Jaagore doesn't really help after a point. It tells you to go and vote. Doesn't quite help you decide who to vote for, and more importantly, why.

If anything, this will be a coming of age election for me. I guess I've come a long way from voting for the one that seems the most harmless. Not a good idea really - just another wasted vote. You could as well be casting the neutral vote. Yes, I'm completely against the "None of the above" option – I think it's just another excuse to pass the buck and let other people make the choice for you. Why? So you can sit smug that you've voted and complain about the rowdies that have come to power?

Every party's got its share of goons, corruption, dirty politics. There's no guarantee that one or the other will really make a difference. It's all so very circumstantial - tomorrow could go any which way. A bomb dropped a country away, a bankruptcy a continent away, and there you have it - equations changing like numbers and symbols gone bonkers. Politicos take U-turns - whatever works, right.

"Politics is the art of possibilities". Who was it who said that? Buddhababu I think, while talking about a possible post-poll alliance with the Congress. Yeah, the same Congress that's currently hobnobbing with Buddhadadu's arch rival, Mamatadidi. It's supposedly all for the greater good.

After a point, they'll all be the same. But it's five years of my future, of the future of my city, my country. So I'll be voting for people I trust - at least, people I trust a little more than the others - silver strands and heavy speeches being hardly a factor. I'll be voting for sensible people, efficient people, clean people, responsible people, and well-intentioned people - at least the people who seem that way from my perspective.

I could be wrong.

I could be very, very wrong. But at least, I'll know I counted.

And democracies have changed governments, people have voted wisely several times over. What number general election is this? I can't quite remember. It runs into double digits - that much I know. Beyond that, it's just a number. But then, elections are all about numbers - the number of seats, the number of candidates, the number of political allies, the number of paramilitary forces, the number of booths, the number of election-based shows, the number of votes.

I am just a number too.

But as long as I count, it's worth it.

I saw a bus burn today

I did. And I took a video of it which is up on ilovekolkata.in. In the process I also learnt one of the first tenets of videojournalism (is that what they call it?): Do not talk while the camera rolls. Do not. Do not. Do not. And certainly do not carry on conversing while the cops disperse the crowds and the fire engines clang-clang there way into the line of fire and set free gallons of smoke that billow into verandahs housing curious onlookers.

Here are excerpts of the thoughts that were lost during the video editing process:

1.Bells are a ringing. The fire engines appear in the camera's line of vision.
Poojo (Suppressing a 'Yay'): The whadya-call-it's come. The domkol I mean.

2. As smoke covers the face of the camera and threatens to come home for lunch.
Poojo: There's so much smoke.
Shreya's dad (Not in response to my tidbit): The cops are dispersing the crowd.
Poojo: Oh. Is that tear gas? Haw!
Poojo (Realising no tears have appeared and noticing that the firemen are rushing around with their massive hose): Oh. It's the firemen at work.
Shreya: Papa abhi aapko maarenge.

For a girl that's supposed to be soft-spoken and who doesn't talk too much, I must've broken a record somewhere... all in the course of one exclusive ILK video that happened due to very very good luck. (Psst: Our official photographer turned up much after the flames had died a fireman-wrought death in this not-so-bitter cold.)

Two buses in the Park Circus area had been burnt on Saturday morning. Excitingly enough (or scarily enough), the third bus was torched a bare two minutes after I crossed the flyover. Even before I rang the bell outside Shreya's house's door, the bus was ablaze. She gave me this horrified look: 'You came through all that?'
Poojo: All what?
Shreya: They burnt the bus. You didn't see?
Poojo: What bus? Where bus? I was looking for a burning bus. There was no bus when I came. I crossed in front of a truck.
Shreya: How come? I saw it burning just as you pressed the doorbell.
Poojo: Haw!
Shreya: There were all these changra boys on the street...
Poojo: I crossed the road with the changra boys. I thought they were there to catch all the action.

The theory Shreya and I now hold is that I crossed with the bus burners.
Poojo's reaction to the above-mentioned theory: Whoa!

What I want to know is how they did it. No one was hurt. Well, not enough anyway to warrant a line that goes: 'Auto operators protesting the High Court ban on two-stroke autos torched a bus on the Park Circus flyover injuring 7 including a child.' Thankfully, that did not happen. But what this meant was, these dudes had to wait for me to enter Shreya's building, find a state bus coming their way, get all the people out, set fire to the box on wheels, and have it blazing away by the time I rang Shreya's doorbell. My theory is that these guys weren't just angry, insecure auto drivers fighting for their livelihood. I think these were professional fire-setting bastards... the kind that are ordered to start mob riots in all those movies where Shakti Kapoor plays a villain politician.

It's not funny though. No political party ought to be allowed to disturb the peace like this. Hunger strikes, factory sieges, and simply sitting outside the CM's house (ostensibly braving the cold. hah!) are just either destructive or irritating tactics. We don't want strikes or slugfests. Give us a solution Ms. Banerjee. It may be a tad unfair to say all the violence is thanks to TMC-backed cadre; it's very likely that CITU Men and Co. are also involved, but somehow, the blamegame always comes back to Mamata Di. Did you know she's been trying to sign her name as 'Mamataa' these days? A Jayalalithaa-like numerological try at the Chief Minister's post. Hah! Fat chance missy. The Left may not be the best option in this so-called democracy of ours where no party is worth a vote, but at least it has a respectable grey-haired Buddha Babu of Palm Avenue to earn our respect even if its folks go around majorly troubling folks in the Nandigrams and Singurs of Bengal. It's not a great option. But at least there's a main man that you can respect and look up to, even if he makes mistakes every now and again.

This post wasn't meant to kick off the Left's pre-election campaign, though it seems to have turned out that way. I'm just pissed off with Mamata's 'Aaj ka gundaraj' style of politics. I wish she'd turn her attention to the terror problem. So the next time terrorists get into some hotel in the country, let's send Mamata to plonk outside till her demands are met. Demands that probably even she will not know. She should soon manage to terrorise the terrorists into surrendering for all eternity. Mamata should be our weapon in the war against terror. At least for this cause she has my vote.

Btw, here's the link to the bus burning video by yours truly: Bus burns in auto-ban protest. And that's Shreya doing the voiceover.

There's been a change in plans

I spend too much time doing things I dislike and too little doing things I enjoy. So there's been a major change in my daily routine which is being propped up by a new New Year's Resolution; one that I had a tough time keeping through most of yesterday. The resolution is that I will worry no more. I've recently developed this tendency to keep going over and over the same things 144 times a day till I'm almost a basket case. I'm not doing that anymore. So whenever a nasty thought enters my head I start thinking of my next fix and voila! I'm stressed no more (at least temporarily).

The New Year concept is kinda silly for Kolkata weather. It comes bang smack in the middle of winter (if you can call this winter). But it gives you a chance to start a new MS Excel sheet for accounts. And a chance to say 'Go away' to all the nastiness of last year. Psychology is a strange subject truly.

This post is quite a rambler. Haven't been posting much at all of late. Blogging is one of the things I do like you see. Even if I type on about nothing in particular. So if my resolution survives me, GGG should see a post population explosion in the coming months.

PS: Going to work is going to be even more irritating with the auto problem these days. There are too many angles to this story... but for starters, I seriously think Mamata should start a bigshit company called Miscellany Bachao Committee. After Krishijomi Bachao and Auto Bachao, this could become an entrepreneur's dream in the TV18 scheme of things. She could even buy up the Nano Bachao Committee and steal the patents, copyrights, trademark, ya-da-ya-da-ya-da.