With all the political incorrectness I can muster at my age, as well as all the middle class angst at my command, I hereby declare that elections are injurious to my health, and positively fatal for the Indian urban middle class household. The lofty ideals of democracy and universal franchise sound magnificent on primetime TV and in essays written for the civil services examinations. In real life, however, elections bring the sad realisation that the missus can no longer kneel to scrub the floor, and I cannot carry three kilos of vegetables without risking an inguinal hernia.
After our vacuum cleaner conked out last year, I must have begged the missus a hundred times to have it repaired. But no—she remained smugly complacent in the security that only a maid of Phulwanti’s calibre can provide. With her around, we needed no vacuum cleaner or dishwasher or washing machine. Now, without warning, we have been thrown into a Phulwanti-less maelstrom, because she has gone to some hellhole in Bengal to cast her vote.
This ballot nonsense has proved to be a killer not just for us but for many others. Sudha, my wife’s bestie, cancelled the kitty at her place, because her maid left for Alappuzha and will return only after the new government is sworn in.
“Maybe she thinks she is the bloody governor,” sniffed Sudha.
The missus informed me in a catty manner that Mrs Sharma, our resident fauji’s wife, has requested her in-laws not to visit Delhi till the end of June. “‘Too hot,’ she said. Totally omitting to mention the small detail that her entire domestic staff has gone to their native village in Tamil Nadu to vote.”
Misserji and Kani Babu dropped in yesterday evening and the latter kept grumbling about life. “My istri kora went home to Howrah for the elections. How long can I live wearing crumpled Punjabis?”
“We, too, have a problem,” said my wife, hoping to avoid making tea for the visitors. “Our maid Phulwanti went to Midnapore to vote and we really don’t know when she will return.”
Kani Babu almost exploded. “Phulwanti? Phulwanti! Is that her name? That is not a Bengali name at all. She must be a Bangladeshi infiltrator with a fictitious name. She is an imposter. One of these days you will certainly wake up to find that this dushto naari and her boyfriend have poisoned you to death while you slept.”
I was speechless. I did not know which was harder to visualise: waking up to discover I am dead, or suspecting our loyal Phulwanti of skulduggery, along with her non-existent beau.
“Arre yaar,” drawled Misserji. “I have not been able to get my hair cut because my Assamese barber has gone to vote. And yesterday, someone mentioned that business in Surat has come to a grinding halt because of labour shortages.”
“Thank God I was able to stop Bassa Ram, our driver, from going away. Though Bassa Ram is a voter in Haryana, Pugalendhi, who runs the corner dosa shop, persuaded him to go along to Puducherry to cast his vote as Bassaramam. He promised that he would earn return train fare and two thousand bucks. So, I upped the ante and promised him twenty-five hundred!”
My wife, that tireless defender of constitutional values, was horrified. “How could you?” she thundered, eyes blazing with outraged patriotism. “You are undermining democracy!”
“Undermining democracy, my foot! What about those willing to pay Bassa to travel to Jhumri Telaiya or wherever to impersonate Bassaramam? Political parties have been bribing voters for decades. They just package it in fancy terms like ‘welfare schemes’, ‘guaranteed minimum income’ and ‘DBT’. Some states have squandered away so much that they can’t even pay their own employees’ salaries. Yet when I do the same to keep my household functional, I become the villain and murderer of democracy?”
“Is Indian democracy more gravely threatened because a few maids miss one polling day, or is the Indian middle class facing greater peril because the bai does not turn up for work?” wondered Kani Babu. He then declared with finality, “In my opinion, there is nothing more depressing than a maid-less home! The absence of the hireling is an existential threat to the Indian household. Whether you like it or not, democracy will survive.”
As I lay awake last night, I kept thinking about the upheavals caused by the recent elections to just a few state assemblies. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the colossal chaos when ‘One Nation, One Election’ gets implemented! No matter how fancy an acronym might be coined for it, the prospect fills me with dread. ONOE sounds suspiciously like ‘Oh No!’—which is my reaction when I think of the consequences of elections throughout the country at the same time. Mumbai will grind to a spectacular halt. Chennai will be gloriously paralysed. Kolkata will finally have an excuse for continuing its time-honoured tradition of dignified non-functioning. Only the people in Delhi’s government offices might not notice any difference—because nothing much happens there anyway.
Ultimately, I went to sleep with the thought that the great engine of democracy will finally run on a single, synchronised track—and the middle class will be the first casualty, left holding two kilos of vegetables, and a broken vacuum cleaner in a maid-less home.
K.C. Verma is former chief of R&AW. kcverma345@gmail.com