Tailor-made democracy

Jug Suraiya

Two roadside darzis, sitting behind their sewing machines, exchanging notes on how their trade is faring.

1st darzi: How’s business for you?

2nd darzi: It’s booming. In fact, it’s never been better. And for you?

1st darzi: It’s doing just great too, and all thanks to these elections that have just finished.

2nd darzi: That’s right. The moment the elections were announced, the orders began to pour in.

1st darzi: Yeah, everyone wanted to have their campaign banners stitched to display at their rallies, and flags with their party symbols on them. And what with more and more new parties being formed, we had no shortage of work.

2nd darzi: That’s the usual stuff for all elections. But this time round we darzis got a bonus, all thanks to just one person.

1st darzi: We sure did. There’s been a huge demand for a whole new range of designer wear, T-shirts, caps, face masks, you NaMo it, and we made it.

2nd darzi: Then in the middle of it all the Chief Election Commissioner recused himself from the Election Commission meetings because he said no one was bothering to listen to what he was saying.

1st darzi: Yup, all of sudden the Election Commission became the Ejection Commission in that it was ejecting itself out of the whole deal. And then people began demanding a recount because of the allegations of rigged EVMs. Which could have meant that the entire business might have been declared null and void and the exercise begun again from scratch.

2nd darzi: In the event, that didn’t happen but we’ve still got our work cut out for us, even with the polls over and done with and the results out. In fact, I think we’re getting even more business now than we got when the polls began.

1st darzi: You can say that again. All of a sudden, a whole lot of people are finding that they have no option but to cut their coat — or, rather, their kurta — according to their cloth.

2nd darzi: And in some cases the cloth in question might turn out to have shrunk quite a bit. Which is another way of saying that not a few are discovering that they’d become too big for their britches and are now having to pay the price for it.

1st darzi: Which is another way of saying that they’ve had their pants taken off.

2nd darzi: That too. Plus having lost their shirt in the bargain.

1st darzi: All of which spells more work for us.

2nd darzi: That’s the whole point of the polls — to give netas and would-be netas a proper dressing down. Which means that they’ll have to dress up again for the next polls. And, don’t forget, quite apart from the all-India General Election, there are all the Assembly elections to keep the wheels of democracy turning and our sewing machines doing overtime.

1st darzi: That’s right. Democracy is just tailor-made for us darzis.

2nd darzi: And the best darzis of all are the voters themselves who, time and again, have shown those in power that they can always be cut down to size….