<b>Geetanjali Krishna:</b> Maybe, it's time for a change

This Thursday, as Delhi went to vote, I stood in my balcony observing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) voter help desks outside my house. They were happy to debate with passers-by about their electoral choices, and hidden behind my plants, I heard some interesting views on politics. Most of the older men in the neighbourhood, primarily from the business class, seemed totally gung-ho about the BJP. However, the younger lot, jeans-clad and loud-voiced, was divided. They spoke loudly about rooting out corruption, bringing down prices of essential commodities and generally wanting "change" - clearly they didn't want the Congress back, but I couldn't get a sense of what party they were rooting for. Then the old fruit seller came by on his bicycle. The political types asked him belligerently if he had voted. I went out - ostensibly to buy some grapes, but also to hear what he had to say. After all, among all of us, he was perhaps, the only aam aadmi.

"I have to work," he said, "I don't have the luxury of taking the day off as I've been sick for a month and have just gotten back to selling fruit. I'll cast my vote when I get home in the afternoon..." he said. The political types spoke to him about price rise, corruption and governance, saying it was his civic duty to vote; the nation needed change. The fruit seller said, "I've thought a lot about whom to vote for... I've been a lifelong supporter of the Congress Party, but this year, I feel that I too want a change."

The change in his political beliefs had been brought about by a personal problem, he said. "Just before Holi, I began to find it painful to swallow solids. Then I lost my voice," he said. His worried son took him to a government hospital for treatment. "We stood all day in a queue, and finally when my turn came, the doctor gave me some medicines but said he could only treat me after I'd had some tests. The earliest we could hope for them to be done, he said, was the following week." How could the doctors expect them to wait a week just for the tests? In frustration, they went to a private doctor who immediately conducted endoscopy, chest X-rays and a battery of blood tests. Within a fortnight, he recovered. "However, this cost me Rs 12,000 that I could ill-afford!" he said.

By this time, election campaigning was in full swing. The fruit seller was confused about his choices. The current government had spent hundreds of crores on health care. Yet, by not providing health care on time, when needed, meant that it had failed its duties, he thought. "So whenever any party worker or candidate asked for my vote, I asked how they'd help me," he said. He discovered that the only party with a detailed health plan for the common people was AAP. "AAP plans to make health care, a right for the common man, just like the right to education," he said. "BJP workers were fired up about price rise and corruption. These are important issues, but not as important to me as getting better health care..." What swayed him further was the fact that his electricity bill had reduced ever since AAP's short-lived tryst with Delhi.

"Maybe the reasons for my voting choices are trivial. But it seems to me that AAP cares for people like me and our insignificant problems," he said. Maybe, I thought, as I went back to my balcony, green grapes in hand, he'd be able to think of the bigger picture once the smaller wrinkles of his life were ironed out. In the meantime, as he said, maybe it was time for change.