Dipti Mukt had acquired her Photo ID card and her name was there on the voters' list for the very first time in her life, an ultimate achievement in her bureaucracy bridled times, kudos to her Dad's tremendous efforts! She was rightfully elated, looking at the ID card a millionth time, painting vivid images on the canvas of her gray cells... the day after discussions with her friends in the college canteen, the title of her blog commemorating the experience, the dress she should be wearing to the red carpet, the EVM exploration/tinkering options and of course the photograph. She had seen the celebrity poses filling the national dailies during last elections and was devising and revising her strategies for her own picture she planned to get clicked with the stylish blue mark and upload on Orkut! :)
She started for The Venue wearing one of her brightest smiles, accompanied by her retinue of siblings and neighbors and friends in the afternoon, at 2pm to be precise. She was not used to long queues and had opted for the lazy hour of the day believing family people would give the venue a miss at that hour being busy with their luncheons and other routine activities like indulging in a power nap, etc. The ten minutes walk seemed to take longer than usual under the spring sun, but she was finally delighted to note that her predictions for the general queue behavior had come true even on such an eventful day! :)
Soon her turn came and she proudly presented her voter # and displayed her ID card to the the first polling officer. He shuffled some papers, looked at her photograph, scanned her face, repeated the procedure, asked his colleague for verification from a second set of papers and ultimately asked her to get out of the line and to go back home. This intensely rude order made her feel a resident of Hiroshima who barely survived the Little Boy! :(
It is hard to put down the commotion in her mind for the next one minute in limited words but finally Dipti gathered herself up and asked for an explanation. The explanation as per the polling officer, "your vote has already been cast as per our records", mercilessly rattled life out of her once again akin to what Fat Man did for Nagasaki. Surprisingly, no one seemed to notice the absence of the much revered sign on her Index finger and she hardly stopped herself from presenting another much rendered sign with her middle finger! :(
Brave girl, she recoiled back to her "Mess With Me Not" attitude pretty soon and went on to create a ruckus how they could allow someone do that when she had the original photo id card and the voter list had photographs. In the meanwhile, someone suggested a brilliant plan to get her out of the room before the situation deteriorated. She was allowed to register her choice on the EVM without the usual paperwork, she questioned the validity of this act, but was falsely convinced that her vote had certainly been registered as she could hear the beep. After this the polling officers pleaded with her to leave the venue along with her once shattered and now sewn back dreams. She left the place, seething with anger and frustrated and determined to bring the corrupt fellas to task! :(
She formulated a plan with her entourage and started searching for media agencies contact numbers, as this seemed to be the easiest and best solution to all. Her mom got alarmed at all this and pleaded with all of them to let the sleeping dogs lie. She was now genuinely concerned about the harms coming her daughter's way if this scandal was publicized. Finally better (REALLY??? or should I say worse...) sense prevailed and she gave in to her mom's teary requests. Dad tried to close the things on a lighter note by saying "Beta, people know you generally don't stay here since you study outside and they wanted to utilize your very valuable vote, what you saw was a real time application of Business Intelligence! :)"
P.S. They say time heals all, but Dipti is yet to overcome her sense of loss...how can she when she missed her chance for the much anticipated Orkut photograph ;)
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