Voting

So the booth was this government school. Most people were queued up outside the main building but we were directed to a little room at the back where there were no observers, no agents, not even the mandatory policeman. Only some very bored looking teachers on duty who cheered up somewhat when we turned up. They looked at the card, located my number on the list, marked it off, marked my finger with ink (which is manufactured in Mysore, by the way) and made me sign against my name on yet another list and gave me some receipt-like thing which I handed to yet another officer who then pointed me to the Electronic Voting Machine.

It was on a small, rickety table with the voter’s privacy protected by a corrugated cardboard box whose bottom and one side had been removed and the rest placed around the EVM. To make sure it didn’t get blown away, some brown packing tape had been used.

That was it. The nation’s fate hung on one long beep. And the secret ballot amounted to a recycled cardboard box. But the potential symbolism, that went right through the roof.