CurrentAffairs : Elections, sweet elections in Pune !
Some time early next year Pune will be having elections to its local government council. I am ecstatic. No, not just because I am a die hard fan of democracy the Indian way, but mainly because councillors have now suddenly sprung to action, and there is a mad race on to show voters what they have achieved.
Take for instance the piteous condition of roads in Pune everywhere. Suddenly most of them have been covered and tarred. Commuters who used to get a good feel of lunar surfaces are now able to zip along nicely, at least in the main areas of town. The roads near my residential colony were the epitome of how roads should NOT be. But in two days flat the council has managed to make that road look like a block in New York.
So citizens whose anger had come to a point where they were all but ready to burn down the council building and beat the hell out of their elected reps., seem to have been nicely assuaged-just in time. I dont expect voters to be mad till the elections either. They are more likely to make their peace by asking themselves a valid question- what difference would it make if the current ruling party is sent back home and another is brought in? People are all too aware that the politics of self interest is the same across all parties and things won't be any different under some one else.
By the time the elections are over in Feb/March, the first whiff of the monsoon would come in. Come June-July and the hurriedly patched roads would start giving way and fall back to their old lunar appearances. Our Cuncillors would revert back to type and start following that famous Zen saying : Sit quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
Ah electionss! I wish it came and grew like grass, every spring.
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Take for instance the piteous condition of roads in Pune everywhere. Suddenly most of them have been covered and tarred. Commuters who used to get a good feel of lunar surfaces are now able to zip along nicely, at least in the main areas of town. The roads near my residential colony were the epitome of how roads should NOT be. But in two days flat the council has managed to make that road look like a block in New York.
So citizens whose anger had come to a point where they were all but ready to burn down the council building and beat the hell out of their elected reps., seem to have been nicely assuaged-just in time. I dont expect voters to be mad till the elections either. They are more likely to make their peace by asking themselves a valid question- what difference would it make if the current ruling party is sent back home and another is brought in? People are all too aware that the politics of self interest is the same across all parties and things won't be any different under some one else.
By the time the elections are over in Feb/March, the first whiff of the monsoon would come in. Come June-July and the hurriedly patched roads would start giving way and fall back to their old lunar appearances. Our Cuncillors would revert back to type and start following that famous Zen saying : Sit quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
Ah electionss! I wish it came and grew like grass, every spring.
