An Alchemist's Blog: Shame on you, Mumbai

I am really upset with you, Bombay. It's official - the low voter turnout, further lowered by some recalculation. You probably will report the lowest in the country, by the looks of it. How could you? As your biggest fan, I must hang my head in shame.

After all the biggest film stars exhorting you to vote, after the sms cascades, the e-mails from citizen groups, the rallies and marches this is what you turned in. A dismal report card of your collective conscience, to say the least. A four-day weekend was enough to bribe you away from your duty, your right? How are you any better than the babus you complain about? The heat shrivelled your resolve? The queues discouraged you? Well, guess what? The weather was no different than when you go out to work everyday. So do you stop going to work? It has to be taken with the same seriousness. And if you had bothered to check you would have noticed there was no queue either.

A whole host of issues have been thrown up as the reasons for the dismal turnout - names missing and all that usual nonsense. But, i promise you, not more than 10 or even 15% of the electorate who wanted to vote may fall into this category of those who went upto the booth and were turned away - and i'm being very generous in assigning that high benefit-of-the-doubt percentage. In an educated city like Bombay turnout should be high - high - as much as 80%. Why not? I don't care about statistics and previous elections and all that hog-wash. I want to know why? Why does a person living in a city not care to vote. Why do the illiterate villagers go out and do it and you can't. I just think you are spoilt and pampered and probably deserve what you're getting.

Everything else i put up with - roads in a perpetual state of disrepair, corruption, a single bridge being constructed at a leisurely pace spread over 10 years, pollution, dirt, filth, stench, heat, humidity, slum-like living conditions in most parts of the city other than the square footage one calls home. All that i become thick-skinned about, thinking it is beyond our control, how can you blame the city for all of this. But now I blame you, Bombay, for you are the people of this city and you did not care enough to want to do something. You have lost respect in my eyes, Bombay. I may even start calling you Mumbai now. Just to spite you with that awful name.

I look at my marked finger with despair. Was i stupid or naive to have voted or was it those who did not who are being stupid? Am i an idealist while they are the so-called realists, the cynics? Those who believe that nothing will change, no matter what? But i quickly realise, not moving your butt to do something is always worse than doing it and failing. I think of Mahatma Gandhi's words, 'Be the change you want to see around you.' And i am sure those of us with that ugly black mark on our middle fingers were not wrong. I also feel naive, but for a different reason. Just because i hounded my household to go vote, gave them time off, timed my activities so each of them had no excuse not to cast their vote, threatened them that they need not come to work tomorrow if they did not bear a certain incriminatory evidence on their fingers, i thought i'd see stunning statistics in the paper the next day. But obviously one household does not a city make. But every household does. And there were several who did not care. I feel naive that i thought each of us to be caring and concerned.

Mumbai, be clear, it is the politicians who have shown you the middle finger in this instance. Possibly even the terrorists and the corrupt officials and the wrong-doers who have won and who, indeed, can tell you to shove it up, for you did not do what was your duty.

First do your duty, then rue the outcome, if you must. Now, by not doing your duty, you have no right to expect anything to come of your inaction. Shame on you. Shame-shame Mumbai.

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