The secret election-day diary of a Lutyen's Delhi liberal

By Overrated Outcast

It all began when I set my alarm to ring at the crack of dawn to wake me up early on voting day. This way, I could avoid the toiling masses and spend the rest of the day gloating on the internet.

This was an especially onerous chore as I’d had a really hectic evening on the previous day. A bunch of us had gotten together at the Jor Bagh residence of a newspaper baron to ponder upon the problems that face our country. The focus of all the brilliant minds in the room soon turned towards the impending election of a certain chief minister from a certain western state.

We all agreed that as popular artists and card carrying members of the liberati, it was our solemn duty to speak out against the approaching fascist avalanche. We came up with a short petition that we all signed and sent it to our good friend Malini who forwarded it to her subordinates marking it for immediate publication.

All of us were pleased. If a strongly worded petition in The Hindu won’t stop Modi in his tracks, I don’t know what will.

Having done our bit for the country, we all sat back to relax and enjoy a riveting two hour documentary about the various types of bougainvillea that have been rendered extinct due to widespread mining in the Aravallis. We then proceeded to feast on an orgasmic serving of Peri-Peri chicken and vegetarian couscous made using select ingredients from the hosts’ own Chattarpur farmhouse. The only disappointment was the wine which no one touched when they found out it was made in Suhel’s bathtub.

However, the evening ended on a good note when a Satish Gujaral painting was auctioned off to benefit a fund for the promotion of art appreciation among the tribal children of Jharkhand. Its striking contrast represented the cognitive dissonance that each of us carry in our minds. It seemed like a comment on the inability of the human mind to recognise its own descent into self-parody. When our friend Ram looked at the painting, he got misty-eyed as he mentioned how it reminded him of Nehru’s dual personality. Being kind & caring one moment and being harsh & angry the next.

After a night of such revelry, do you blame me for not being willing to face the tyranny of the morning sun? The only thing that got me out of bed was my patriotism. After devouring a scrumptious omelette prepared by eggs specially delivered from my friend Naveen Jindal’s poultry farm, I told my assistant to hold all my calls and sent for my driver. I was going out to perform my most sacred duty as a citizen!

As I headed to the voting booth, I still hadn’t made up my mind whom to vote for. I wondered if should ask my driver for his opinion. I might even get to use the conversation to write a few dozen articles like my editor friend Shekhar does everytime the election wagon rolls into town. This sadly was not to be as my driver is under no circumstances supposed to either look at me or speak to me directly. So I did what my columnist friend Swapan likes doing whenever he wants to debate a topic he’s already made up his mind about: create an imaginary person who will say what is required. I am happy to report that my driver is extremely disappointed with Arvind Kejriwal’s pedestrian antics, disgusted with Rahul Gandhi’s immense stupidity and terrified of Modi’s dictatorial tendencies.

As I was contemplating which party’s terrible policy paralysis to validate by voting for them, we reached my polling station. As I got down to go and elect India’s next top corporate mole, the parking attendant yelled at my driver to move the car. I got angry and gave the parking agent a ten minute lecture about the sanctity of freedom and democracy and how Mahatma Gandhi himself died so that I could park my car anywhere I wanted to. Surprisingly, the attendant refused to budge until I told him that I would report him to my good friend and Delhi police commissioner BS Bassi.

This is what’s wrong with our country. Give the little people a little power and they think that they’re the bloody King of the World.

After I managed to complete the long trek to the room containing the voting booth, I saw the huge line and resigned myself to a long wait. There was no place to sit down. The ambience had the aesthetic of a crumbling government school and they were literally letting anybody in! I don’t think that is what our founding fathers intended when they decided on universal suffrage.

The polling officer shrugged off my complaints and got back to aimlessly looking at the blank register in front of her. Whatever happened to service with a smile? I would’ve asked to see her manager but it would’ve been pointless. So I made a mental note to go home and give my polling station a bad review on Yelp instead.

As I reached the front of the line, an unpleasant man called out my number and asked for my autograph. I happily obliged. Though, I felt less special when I saw that he did the same for the next person in the line. This was shocking because I am pretty sure that he doesn’t even have his own weekly column.

Finally, after such a long wait, I got to the voting booth. So many choices, so little difference between any of them. I pressed a button and felt a weight lifting from my shoulder. I didn’t have to worry about some righteous asshole trying to guilt-trip me because I didn’t vote.

Though I had a terrible day, I can at least find comfort in the fact that I had done my mightiest to stop the descent of the country into hell – as in, something that I wouldn’t recognise. I can pride myself in being a person of principles; principles I firmly believe in and will never, ever compromise on.

Oh dear, look at the time. I’m late for that dinner at my friend Arun Jaitley’s house.

Overrated Outcast is a writer based in Delhi. You can follow him on twitter @over_rated.