There is nothing quite like an Indian election: it is, to borrow from The Times of India’s slogan, ‘the dance of democracy’. Yesterday, was yet another remarkable moment in India’s electoral history. There was a general feeling ahead of counting day that AAP was in the lead. My own figure in the office sweepstakes was a half century for AAP. But no one, least of all Arvind Kejriwal himself, could have imagined 67 out of the 70 seats.
Journalism can leave you with tattered minds and bloated egoes: so were the wise words imparted to me by the late RK Laxman early on in my career. He was right: over the years, I have seen perfectly decent men and women allowing themselves to be overcome by hubris and petty battles. Did I get my byline? What happened to my piece to camera? Why should I share screen space with someone else?
Just before the December 2013 Delhi elections, our housekeeper, who has been the mainstay of our home for over a decade, came with a special request. “Sir, I want to get a voter ID card,” she said enthusiastically. We managed the voter card and on election day, she turned to me triumphantly with her inked finger, “Humne jhadoo ko vote diya!” Now, over a year later, she is planning to vote again for AAP. It’s the same with the municipal worker who cleans the street near our home, the driver and the watchman.
For the first six years and a bit of my professional life, the common man was an intrinsic part of my life. Every morning, a little after 9 am, two individuals would file into the Times of India office, almost like clockwork. One was close to 70, the other was just 23
Every Republic Day brings back memories of another day, another time. I was entering my teens when I arrived in Delhi for the first time to participate in the 1978 Republic day parade as an NCC cadet. My memories are fading but still alive. I remember having to get up at 5 am every morning in the biting cold, get my shirt starched and buckles shining: parade practise was at 7 am sharp.
The year 2011 was the year of Anna Hazare, as a septuagenarian activist was literally lifted out of near-retirement to be projected as a modern-day Gandhi. Four years later, Anna has returned to the anonymity of the village square at Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra but the torch-bearers of his anti-corruption movement are back on the national centre stage in an all new avatar and in a dramatically transformed context.
Dr Kiran Bedi is an accomplished woman, one I respect and admire. A few years ago, I was a media representative at the National Police Academy in Hyderabad and Dr Bedi and I along with other senior police officers were attending a meeting of the NPA. By 6 pm, most of the menfolk were getting restless: the sun was setting and the throat was parched. But Dr Bedi — the only woman in the room — determinedly made a stellar presentation on the citizen police equation. The rest of us had lost interest, but Dr Bedi was pushing ahead with her speech.
And then they came for the cartoonists. The Indian Express headline this morning is quite brilliantly apt, more so because it reveals the cowardice of the hooded men with guns. A cartoonist is one of the most incisive beings in a newsroom, someone who uses the sketch pen as a weapon, not of mass destruction but of universal wit, sarcasm, laughter. You turn to a cartoonist for relief from the daily rigours of life: amidst sadness, death and destruction, the cartoon is meant to inject humour into our lives.
Shashi Tharoor went to my school in Mumbai; an old school tie can be a special bond. I do not choose to defend Mr Tharoor or give him a clean chit. Nor will I pronounce him guilty in the ‘court’ of a television studio. What I do call for is a swift and transparent investigation into the Sunanda Tharoor case. Sunanda died on January 17,2014. Now, almost a year later the Delhi police has filed an FIR in the case for murder under section 302 against ‘unknown persons’.
