What Change ?

Did I vote last Thursday?
Short answer - No.
Real answer – I did not, because I could not. I had filled up the forms to get myself registered as a voter in Bombay, but my name never found its way into the voter’s list and I just did not have the bandwidth to run around the offices to get it inserted.
Will I vote next time round?
Definitely. My country deserves much more than sheer apathy.

I still think my vote is precious. Going by the number of fingers sporting the India Ink tattoos, almost all my colleagues think that way too. Why then did only slightly over 40% of the population of my city exercise their franchise?

Sure, many of the migratory workers would have gone on their annual pilgrimage to their respective ‘gaons’; a large chunk of the middle class would be taking advantage of the long summer holidays to avail their LTAs- none of them would be willing or able to air-dash to Bombay for a day to cast their vote.

But what about educated, newly enlightened upper middle class people who took to the streets with their hand crafted candles post 26/11? Could they not have left for their weekend break in Lonavala or Goa after exercising their franchise? When so many ‘people like them’ took the plunge this time round, could they not have supported their candidature by casting their vote?

“Be the change you want to see”, said the Father of the Nation. After our fantastic showing last Thursday, do we even have the right to call for change?