As it Turnsout

I always have an opinion about votes, but I almost always shy away from debates on voting. It’s frankly because till date I haven’t had an opportunity to vote.  (I’ve seem almost 6 to 8 elections pass by btw) You can simply say I’m lazy, I don’t care about electing, or I still don’t feel empowered enough to actually believe that my vote can make a difference. 

The General Elections of India are probably one of the biggest democratic exercises on the face of earth, and with it comes a lot of drama, games, schemes, garlands, and well... some shoes too. The problem in the Indian electoral system since the earliest times has been the voter turnout. People don’t see it to be worth the effort.   The average voter turnout in the General Elections is around 60% meaning less than two thirds of the people were responsible for deciding whom to elect and assuming two thirds voted for the party(ies) forming the government, only about 40% of the total (voting) population of India chose the ruling party. So about 60% were in no way responsible for the central government! But I’m sure they had their share of complaining on how dysfunctional the government is. (Me included)

Ok here’s little info,

Voter turnout can actually say a lot, they are generally used to send political messages too. The 72% voter turnout in the Assembly election of Arunachal Pradesh in 2009 was hailed by the media and a few voices in India as a message against the Chinese aggressive pursuit of annexing Arunachal Pradesh. Similarly this time around (2014) certain groups... well ok terrorists (I was just trying do a Reuters and not use the word terrorist :D ) put up signs and distributed flyers telling people not to vote, in an attempt to show that Kashmiris don’t feel like voting or participating in the democratic system of India. 

www.mirror.co.uk

Now lemme tell you why I haven’t had a chance to vote yet. When I turned 18 I was sure I could cast my vote in the coming election, I was born in the beginning of the year and by the time the next election came in 2008 I was eager and well, had not yet figured anything in politics but wanted to vote, I was eager and was taken by the ‘right to vote’ thing. But my name was not in the list, disappointment. The next election was in 2009, I tried to register myself, the clerk at the official looking koisk asked me to fill form and took 2 or 3 photos, loksabha election 2009 – ‘sorry your name is absent in the list’, ok. 2010 – Municipal election, the guys came home (supposedly) and we weren’t at home; result – no vote. It’s been so through till now.  In the initial days I wanted a voter ID so that I can have an address proof, (then I got my passport, so lost interest all the more) Oh I forgot, last time I registered online, after everything is done, they want us to take a print of the sheet and goto the election commission office of our district, I got the print, but sadly never found time to do the submitting part. OK enough about me.

Speaking of Democracy itself, I feel it doesn’t work too well with India. I mean, in a country like India, the biggest and most diverse democracy of the world, we need to tailor the idea of democracy. What we currently have is a crude form of democracy that involves participation of everyone at once. How can you actually expect one hundred crore people to actually come out and vote? In fact if the 100 crore came out to vote, I’m not sure we have enough logistics to support that kind of a turn out. What I’m trying to say is this idea of total participative democracy is actually a failure. It doesn’t work. We cant have everyone voting at once... because ‘everyone’ is NOT everyone. Maybe we need stages, maybe increase the levels, cut the power, maybe increase hierarchy... who knows that might have its own problems, but my point is, low voter turnout will remain a problem in this crude form of total participation. Thats it!

Btw facebook pics, all the ‘be responsible’ ads and everything is making voting a glamorous thing, which is good.. might just get the urbans to vote.. but hey.. I still haven’t voted.. not even fashion can me vote.. I wonder how anyone would vote.

Anty Life

There is never a hot day in Bangalore, yet there is always hot water from the solar heater. The November of 2009 began with the vengeance of the retreating monsoons. Chennai was under water. Rain god showed all that meant violent love. Flooding roads, crashing trees and lots of tv coverage. 

300 kilometres away on a green patch of higher ground, there was thick cloud cover with an occasional falling drop. Children loved it and others loved for it. It was paradise revisited for Bangaloreans.   

I woke up with a few good text messages from close friends and a nice good morning message from a closer... Yeah alright I had the hots for her...  A hot cup of mom made coffee and exchanging text messages with the girl you have the hots for on a chilly morning with a slight drizzle. (Except for that idling garbage truck) mornings can’t get better.

Owing to the lovely weather and ample time, I ran against my natural instinct and decided to take a bath. Who knows, I might get lucky on a lazy cupid day.  The solar heater was on its off day, so we had to turn to the electric one. I felt a slight chill run down me as I stripped and turned on the taps. My mom told me when I was kid that you must first fill your buckets and then take off your cloths so that you won’t feel cold. I guess after all these years I’m still too eager to get naked. Well, maybe the reasons and places have changed a bit...  but let’s not get into that now. So I was getting ready to bathe and as the solar heater was busted due to the cloud cover, we had to use the electric heater.

I turned on the tap and was greeted with the familiar spurts of hot water as the tap filled my bucket. Just after a minute or so, I saw a few ants come around the tap. I thought they were just some random scout ants looking for food.  

 Huh! Lame ants, what will you find under a bathroom tap?

The bucket was full and I was getting high on the scent of the Mysore sandal soap. Just after I had enough, I placed the soap back on the shelf and turned to wash myself. That’s when it happened! I saw a swarm! There was a huge swarm of black common house ants moving all over the tiles and taps! There were thousands! Or maybe more! Guess what! The seldom used hot water tap had been their nest!  And those poor ants might’ve got too hot under the tap and were swarming out in panic.

The first thing I did was turn off the tap. Then I observed what was happening. A huge mass of slow moving ants were moving in the opposite direction of the heat. A few ants had taken off and were running around looking panicked. That’s when I realised the ants I first saw were indeed scout ants. They had been sent out at the first sight of danger to look out for a new safe place to nest. Only now there were more, maybe a hundred scouts. 

They seemed to enter under other taps, imperfections and holes in the wall. But maybe they were not fit or already occupied.  By then the swarm had moved quite a distance from the hot tap. I noticed that there were three big clusters or three places where ants had formed multiple layers, ant over ant and many layers like that. On closer inspection I saw that two of those clusters had bigger ants in the middle. 1 big ant covered and protected by a thousand others. Those must be the queens I thought. The 3^rd cluster looked slightly coloured, yellow white or off-white. Those were the eggs! So the million ants had formed three hard and impenetrable (or so they might’ve thought) clusters. Two protecting their queens and one protecting their eggs. 

The scout ants were still making their rounds and after a while the swarm slowly started moving, the clusters were dissolved; the queens and eggs were safely moved back to the nest. The scout ants might’ve thought the tap was back to normal. 

I wanted to let hot water out again and see if they do the same drill all over again. But then again, a man’s got to have a heart, plus one can’t spend the whole day in the bathroom right? Just then I realised how I must look, a nude man bent over looking at a slow moving ant swarm.  Hmm... Quite a view.

I did step out of the bath and lived on happily ever after. Until today that is.

It wasn’t until late yester night that I was reminded of this ant experience. I had just finished with a rather communist book and was at a loss of words. The book itself stood by the side of justice and humanity. It might seem clichéd or even retroprogressive to some, but the book dealt with over exploitation of work force by rich capitalists. I’ve always been intrigued by communism. And I just feel common ownership could be really motivating.  

Now communism might seem, as I said, retroprogressive. But isn’t china doing good? Isn’t kerala doing great?? It’s got the best HDI in the country! and not to mention 100% literacy. Why? It’s simply because everyone is given a fair chance. An authority stands up and commands its brothers to do what is right. And goodness prevails. Of course, the authority needs to be on the side of good. Which!! Is the challenge!  

I’m too small and know very less about the complexities of politics; the pits of communism and socialism, the highs of the “free world” and capitalism are also a little blur to me. And my dad would really be worried if I call myself a red, but isn’t keeping it simple the best? 

All I know believe right now is that an ant can move the world. How many times have we been given the ant’s example? Work force? Discipline? Hard work? Always look for alternatives? Always keep your chances open? Never give up?

Well Here’s another, Communism. 

Sadly for your guys, this write has been less about communism and more about what I do in the bathroom, so I’ve thought about reading more about communism vs liberalism or capitalism and maybe... If I find something interesting or at least am able to strike up a good conversation, I would surly put it out here. Thanks for reading... bye