So...It's Election Week!

I'm deciding whether to vote for the guy who started this amazing bus that takes us to all the places we normally visit but end up changing two or more buses on the way. Now we dont feel like we're in a village on the outskirts of Bombay; we're more with it now. Better connectivity and all that. Not to mention that I can just zip on to an air-conditioned KingLong any time I feel like visiting South Bombay, which the ugly circuit (celebs who're only in the news for attending and throwing parties) calls SoBo now. Why not call it Manhattan while you're at it?

Anyway, we still have power outages (load shedding) for up to 3 hours a day split up into schedules of one and a half hours at a time. I'm lucky that water's still available through the day and night. We do have little riots breaking out among the underprivileged sections of our little town but that's everywhere! SoBo has little swimming pool parties, brunches, horse racing as it's summer activities while they move around these venues in air-conditioned comfort. They probably never open any window to get in anything other than air-conditioned breezes. And we read about these things every single day while the sweat drips down our necks. I dont think there's a SoBo word for sweat.

Yesterday, I went down for a walk in the evening (around 7 pm) and still managed to sweat buckets before I even got warmed up. Going to the library and standing under a few fans helped me gear up for the final lap home.

So it was a pleasant surprise to see political personalities campaigning out in the sweltering heat and sunshine. The only time in five years that anyone bothers to leave their cushy homes and offices and mingle with the people (only they do it in trucks with a few chosen commoners). They speak of problem-solving and getting water problems sorted out but it is pushed to the backburners when they come to power. Today, I read that one of them is against educating rural people to use computers. They will be out of work if they do that is his reason. At the same time, they want to work for those in villages, provide them electricity and water. No one does that because every five years, the same things are being promised to these people. Where in heck is anyone going to learn how to use a computer in such circumstances?

At the same time, the class divide keeps increasing. There's SoBo on one hand while on the other are thousands of slums that stay where they are while realty rates increase so much that the salaried class can feel the pinch of investing in a flat big enough to house all their family members.

One day, I hope to see electricity and water striked out as promises. We cannot take India to any global level if her villages and half of her cities are still in the dark.