Ek cup chai........

I found an old article written by me in my previous office magazine. Hope u enjoy it :)

The winds of election are blowing everywhere. Politicians are using every trick in the book to tap the vote bank. From things as traditional as election campaigns to as modern (and absurd) as modified movie songs. You cannot ignore them even if you want to.

But the thing I couldn’t help noticing was the enthusiasm and awareness among the people during these elections. Especially among 2 sections of the society who traditionally never formed a part of the “voter bank”- the middle and upper middle class and; the youth. A staggering one hundred million first time voters (I am happy to be one amongst them) is the proof of the same. People are trying to

find out as much as possible about the candidates from their ward and are ready to grill them before casting their votes.

Such mass awareness can be credited to the various non political mediums who have shown the importance of voting. The TATA tea Jaago re Campaign and the Times Lead India Campaign are very successful examples of the same. Even celebrities and radio stations are urging people to vote.

But my jaago re moment was the 26/11 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks. It scared me out of my wits to just imagine a dozen terrorists landing in India and going on a shooting spree for two whole days. The images of the Taj burning still scare me. It made me think….we had floods, we named it a natural calamity; we had train explosions, we named it a global calamity; but what about our mindset? Why are we so indifferent? Isn't even this a national calamity???

One problem still persists - whom to vote for. Because the voters may be different but the players are still the same. But at least we are one step ahead in the right direction. Now the only thing to choose is what do we need to wake us up before every elections - terrorist attacks or ek cup chai????