The Man from Madras Musings notices that elections are yet to grip the public imagination in this our land. His residence, as several regulars of this column will know, is more or less a reliable barometer, for most political meetings are held just around the corner from chez MMM. But this time the silence is deafening. Not that MMM is complaining, mind you. There was one meeting though, held by a motley collection of parties that have been abandoned by the big two. This had nine people on stage and three off it, these latter being, MMM suspects, the men who arranged the sound system, the chairs and the refreshments respectively. The principal speaker said that if his group (MMM cannot refer to this entity as single party) was elected, the first thing they would do was the cleaning up of the three foul rivers in our city. MMM guesses that when you are not likely to be elected, you can promise the moon and get away with it.The Election Commission, which as you all know, frowns strongly on the pasting of posters by political parties on private walls, has decided to go the poster route. It has ‘pasted the town’ purple with posters of that colour, all extolling you to go and caste (oops that Freudian slip was unintended) your vote. MMM wonders if there is some double standard in this – how do you prevent people from pasting posters when you do the same? ‘Why beholdest thou the mote that is thy brother’s eye when thou considerest not the beam in thine own eye’ about sums it up.

These days, MMM gets very confused by the number of political outfits in our state, for they all have similar names with a liberal numbers of Ms and Ks in them. So in order to distinguish between them, he has arrived at a formula that he now happily shares with you. It may be of use when you walk into the polling booth. Will You Do It thunders the leader of one party at the end of every speech and the audience responds with a resounding ‘Yes’. So this is the Will You Do It Party. The principal opposition requests the people not to do it and so they are the Don’t Do It Party. A pater who is a doctor and has a matching son has accused some other party of stealing his manifesto and so his outfit becomes the Who Did It Party. There is one national party that depends on its one great leader to come down and garner votes and so it can be called the He Will Do It Party. The other national party now rapidly becoming notional is as divided as the fingers on a hand and each faction is out to pull down the other. So this is the We Did It Party. The motley group referred to in the first place can be classified as the We Hope to Do It party.

Whatever happens, very few of these parties and candidates promise to do anything for our State. That is if you are not in the market for cows, buffaloes, goats, mixers, grinders, laptops and, now, smart phones as well.