Vote Infra

My mother was one of the presiding officers at a polling station in the city. This is a regular duty given to school principals at election time. She, along with a team of 4-5 other officers, was incharge of their particular booth. These other officers can come from any of the various delhi govt departments, and from various clerical/admin designations. Attached to this team is also some police presence. So you reach your polling booth at 3 a.m, collect the EVMs and other documents, set up the polling infrastructure, and all this does take time. Voting is carried out from 7 a.m to 5 p.m. That is followed by collection of all the papers and records and most importantly the EVMs, which along with the team, are packed in a secured vehicle and taken to the main collection centre in the city.
Now you can imagine, in a city with a population as large as Delhi's, how many polling booths you would have, and hence how many people would be involved in carrying out this exercise. All of those people descend at the same time at the central collection centre. This, very obviously, results in alot of mayhem. The last time ma got the general election duty, she was home at midnight. Today was better, we were home at 10.30 pm.

So, of the various things I admire about my parents, one is that they both are working directly in/with the system in this country (and not as babus, thank you very much) . And through their participation, RG and I have gotten to see a different perspective of reality, and hence also treat in a manner different from most of our counterparts. When you are involved with the actual 'aam aadmi' of your country, on a day to day basis, your understanding of issues of affecting them and indirectly affecting you, becomes much more clear. And talking to people from all levels of the society/administration/professional spheres, makes you...a lot more complete, and alot more aware of the actual realities. And that, I feel, is very very important in a country as diverse and crazy as ours.