De Voted Finger

Andal miss is a staunch Vaishnavite. Not to mention the fact that she is a Government school teacher posted on Election duty. She sees the sign of her God Krishna in everything. Even in the indelible ink that she has been appointed to apply on the patient voters of Mylapore nadu. Irrespective of caste, creed, subcaste, gender or species she liberally applied the indelible ink like you would apply srichurnam on a balding forehead. Hence,

(1) Now my entire left forefinger looks like nailpolish gone horribly wrong.

(2) Whenever I point at somebody to mention some insensitive, scandalous information about them, the listener is riveted at the purple spear on my finger.

(3) I only have nine fingers that I can lick.

We went to the voting area as early as 7:30 AM, which is close to midnight by my standards. The sun was on it’s warm-up lap already, and the fact that all the “uncles” in the queue, were fresh in their non-showered state of post-morning walk, was really helping the general ammonia level. I am assuming that they had all ambled in at 6 AM, as there were 20 creatures with varying levels of osteoporosis in front of me.

The “lady police” or the “Pombala Police” as we affectionately call them, were the only contingent that were sporting a wicked looking sidearm. During the hour long wait, I was tempted several times to walk up to one of these lady cops and ask them if I can take a snap holding the gun, but the fact that the heat would have already melted my phone-camera and the fact that I was consigning myself to as little movement as was possible (as I had not completed the non-aromatic disposal activities that all adult healthy people do in the mornings), made me hang on to the crooked wooden railings that were constructed so that we can all enjoy the fun game of hunting for the impossibly hidden, extremely painful splinters.

The cops had the usual Enfield rifles that the Saryupariya Brahmins Division threw down in protest under the leadership of Mangal Pandey, during the Sepoy mutiny. Historic artifact that always brings a tear to the eye whenever we see it leaning against the parabolic curve of the stomach region of the average cop.

There seemed to be a genuine degree of confusion inside the polling booth and the blokes that were conducting the polls seemed to be discovering the polling process in tatkal learning, hands on at that time of polling.

All the hospitals nearby were hosing down the Intensive Care Units and changing the sheets and conducting repairs, as all the centenarians that were on life support had miraculously got up and had come down to the polling station to cast their vote. It was a proud moment to see the vast army of living proof of south Indian longevity walk in to the polling area at a brisk 8 millimetres per hour trot. The number of old people, or “perusus” as we respectfully call them, was staggering.

I also suspected that there might have been some media mischief, where all the youngsters thought that the voting age has been raised to forty, as I didn’t see anyone of my age in the area.

As I cast my vote and dripped half a cup of sweat on the Electronic Voting Machine, I realized, albeit too late, that the indelible ink business would have been a good choice, as Andal miss alone was using it like the free Neer-More during Aruvathimover.