Gabriel García Márquez and the elections.

The landscape, littered with the torments of intermittent memories and the detritus of betrayed promises, remind the predicament of the unrequited 'tryst with destiny.' The Painstakingly built Nehruvian consensus is in tatters and the dynasty which he willy-nilly promoted and thrust upon the nation despite his wit and wisdom is tottering-intensity of scepticism matched only by the desperation of disillusion.

India is clearly in the heat of change. The disillusion induced by the years of betrayal unlikely to be assuaged by the promise of a cornucopia in the future with the people no longer willing to submit themselves to some inscrutable will of an obdurate providence or to the fanciful caprices of self-righteous politicians with heads in the clouds but their feet of clay dangling and pulling them down.

There are labyrinths of disappointment and juxtaposed with these are green shoots of pessoptimism . A large section of the Indians, groaning under disorder and desolation, exasperated by the futility of Parliamentary discourse, gasping for an existence-even though meaningless-look uncertain and tentative on the surface but scratch the surface and comes out the torrent of emotions-all of them not necessarily status quo-affirming.

Indians-being the unconcious inheritor of a ceaseless civilisation- donot display their emotions with any degree of scrutable certainty. Their half -angry smile, subdued cries, deep silences,long sighs,sudden outbursts,deep silences again, layered mind and glib argumentation hide from even the most trained eyes their psychodynamics.

And sounds, more sounds, ear-splitting, deafening sounds-this sense of eternal cacophony gets accentuated upon the arrival of an election. Every public figure has a character neurosis and and every public character is in the need of a psychosis of fear and anxiety that they could project into the minds of the citizens. Their hard manners,bold lies,absurd words, flaunting attitude, now fawning, now frowning, victims of a permanent seize mentality invest an election with terrifying nuances that are simply unprecedented.

But none should be lulled into believing that the end is nigh. The chasm between almost youthful enthusiasm of politicians and fatalistic humanism of citizens is not a malfunction of communication but a manifestation of a civilisation in the agonising throes of becoming a nation.