Cometh the hour, didn't cometh the vote..

It's my first blog. I've scratched my head to find a topic, only to realize my fingers have become oily. Thought of getting into a tub to have a Eureka moment but finally understood how retarded I am to settle on one simble(yes I am that type) topic. Took a glance at my left-hand while typing and 'hain? whats that mark? oh haaan. I voted yesterday' Thus the middle finger prevailed in helping me zeroing in on a topic I must comment on.
It was April 30th 2009 yesterday. It was declared as Voting Day by the Election Commission of India. Weeks back I had done a sommer-sault (yes I'm 85 kgs and my room revolves vertically) on finding out that the 30th was a holiday for Voting. That meant 4 days leave on a stretch. That meant Partaayy time for everyone.. that meant trouble for the ECI and sadly it materialized. I registered myself for the first time and was elated to see my name in the list of voters. The volunteers were very helpful in taking that extra effort to search for a 'Siddharth Sethumadhavan' in those papers. On spotting my name it felt like your name appearing on the final list of entrees for a top-level exam. I approached the person with the ink. He started fingering.. I beg your pardon.. started inking my middle finger. I let out a 'hain?' on him on which he responded saying that this time it was the middle finger and a longer mark. On this my dad showed me the middle finger for approval.. with by-standers saying 'Damn! that dad is cool' . In my head I came out of the room like an Indian Idol contestant getting selected in the auditions, but in reality gave an aye to my mom and proceeded.
I returned home and was watching the Voter turnout details. It portrayed a dismal 18-20% for Mumbai which was disheartening and shameful. At the end of the day the ECI declared a 44% turnout in Mumbai. This percentage was lower than what we recorded in 2004. Why? simple.. i mean simble. damn it.
The Govt did a great job keeping Voting Day on such a perfectly placed day. It fell in the period of vacations for kids, which eventually got the families missing from their homes. I totally blame the common man for being so negligent and downright irresponsible, but the govt needs to take steps to make every citizen vote(which is why I agree with Advani's suggestion of making voting mandatory). I mean how responsible is this Mumbaiite to bicker on every issue concerning the govt and not fulfill his/her utmost important duty, to Vote.
This was supposed to be the most informed election phase, but it looks like all parties spent their precious time in bringing out rotten issues and tainted members out in the front. Bravo! If we comment on it saying 'They are like this only', the figures rolled out yesterday definitely tag us as 'We are like this only'. All we do now is wait and predict the winner like a cricket match. Only difference here is that we had the choice to select our winner. I hope we did good.

Siddharth