Vote for Mr.Nobody. Party symbol - Middle finger

There was a huge beach house party on Wednesday night celebrating your dog's first loose motion. You made it. There was an insane super-fun Raagini MMS movie marathon on Thursday afternoon. You made it. Oh, your girlfriend was completely helpless because she couldn't find her blue colored hairband and she always wears blue on Thursdays. You spent four hours finding it for her.

Yet, you couldn't spend ten minutes to vote. 

Of course you had reasons. I shall address them for you.

1. It was a holiday, dude. Rest time.

No, it was not a holiday. It was election day. Your wretched BPO reluctantly shut shop because they thought you would vote; Not eat chicken frankie and sit around in your boxers staring at wedding albums on facebook. It was a holiday because they thought if they give you 24 hours off, you might spend ten minutes to vote. Nope, you did not.

2. I live in a different city, bro. Like IRCTC problems yaar

If you can bunk a day for being hungover, I am sure you can bunk a day to come vote. It is your city. If there was no current, you take a grand total of ten seconds to say 'Chutiya MLA. Takes our money and swallows them.' And what were you doing when these chutiyas got elected? Getting drunk. *Slow clap*

3. My name was not in the rolls man. Government functioning is so shitty nah?

That is the dumbest reason ever. Here is a story. Your college decides to take you for an excursion and takes 10,000 rupees from everyone. They say they will have a quick show of hands to decide the place to go to. But on that day, you decide to go play footsie with your girlfriend in CCD because you are like cool and stuff. And then you come for the excursion with a huge backpack and the college takes you for a full building tour of Saravana Stores and ends the evening with a boat ride on the Cooum river. Would you be happy? Well, you Have to be, because when they asked you to help them sort it, you didn't.

The government gives you eight weeks to check if your name is on the rolls. If it isn't, it takes fifteen minutes to fill a form to include your name. It can even be done online. But you didn't. And that is the government's fault? 

4. Abey, no candidate is good enough man. I want to tell the country that everybody is bad, by not voting.

How on Earth is the government supposed to know you have such god forsaken reasons to not vote? Heck, you sucked at reading your girlfriend's thoughts. But the government has to read yours? They have an option called NOTA. You can honestly tell them that you do not like anybody. They will take action on it. But you never bothered because this is too low for your awesomeness factor.

5. Machi, even if I put NOTA, who else will put huh? Tell ra, tell.

You do not have to decide for the others. You are never going to know. If a newbie called Arvind Kejriwal can dethrone a veteran queen like Sheila in a matter of six months, I am sure your vote can make a difference. (Yes, Kejriwal screwed up. But you were excited when he got elected, weren't you?). Make a small difference. Everybody else will.

6. I don't care. I won't vote. I won't complain.

These are the kings of the reason world. They won't vote because they have no faith in the government, but they can't be blamed because they won't complain about anything it seems. You never know the storm that will hit you because of your indifference. When your building complex gets razed by a government official for building a mall and you come to the streets, you will. When your relative is dying of a heart attack and your government hospital is too inefficient to even treat common cold and he dies, you will. Basically, when shit hits the fan, you will, son. But then, you might be too late.

There are blind people voting. There are physically handicapped people voting. My maid came and told me she paid 200 rupees by auto to take her daugher and son to go vote because her polling booth was far away. But she was proud of it. There are people out there living with hope, doing their little bit to make a difference. An educated sensible person like you cannot throw reasons. Go out there and vote next time. India is never going to be a superpower if you keep eating chicken frankies and farting on election day. Just saying.

P.S: I may have offended one or many of you in the course of this post. If at all I have, just in the tiniest sense if I have hurt your sensitivities in any way, I just really really want to say, that I wholeheartedly meant it. Rot and burn.

Tweet

16th of November. That day. That man.

It has been my dream for twenty five years to step onto the Chepauk cricket ground. Every time I have gone there to watch a match, I would secretly pray that they would have left one of the gates open or unguarded, so I could rush into the ground and fall on the grass there. That they would shoot me down with a rifle is a separate story, but I always prayed I would feel a single blade of grass there someday and suddenly my life would gather some meaning.

Yesterday, a friend of mine took me to the MCC club for dinner. I sat in the pavilion and had dinner and then decided that I had had one too many bottles of water and decided to use the restroom. The waiter walked me into the restroom and wait-for-it, it was the restroom inside the player's changing room. This was the place where Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman would have sat and changed and stared at themselves in the mirror. The feeling was surreal.

I simply sat down on one of the chairs for a minute to feel the excitement brimming within me. When I walked out, the friend who had brought me for dinner dragged me to a gate and led me out of it. On. To. The. Ground.

I was walking On the cricket ground that Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar had fielded. His four had probably brushed the blade of grass under my foot. This was on the 16th of November. The last day of the last test Sachin had played. Slowly it struck me that Sachin would never step on this ground again. And I rushed back to the restroom and silently wept.

I am not some knowledgeable cricket writer. I am not a guy who can quote every innings of Sachin or remember his pet dog's name. I don't know his life by-heart. I am like one of you. I just love him. I just wholeheartedly love Sachin because that is who he was to me - A complete Indian cricketer. Every time he came to bat, I watched with amazement. I looked at his shot selection, at his ability to soak pressure and his at humility when someone mentioned his greatness.

I have seen enough interpretations of one in movies. Enough actors have tried giving me an enacted representation of it. But in real life, as a man of flesh and blood, Sachin Tendulkar is my hero. He will always inspire me. This is a man who when 40 years old, still played for Mumbai and single-handedly took them to victory. I shall never watch his farewell speech again because it has the word 'farewell' in it. It will remind me that Sachin will never play again. And every time I get reminded of that, I will weep like a baby. For when a hero hangs up his boots, who are we going to look up to again?

Tweet