I must admit I am not a political animal but am in the grip of the election fever - deadly than any viral infection. With family away, the 9 o clock news is the only entertainment. Yesterday I was shocked when youth from south Mumbai were indifferent to election despite the long candle vigils & a tsunami of words on 26/11.

I wonder how short our memory is! I am seeing pictures of voters – rich & poor – showing the tip of their finger smeared with indelible ink the proof of their having cast their votes. Or is it the proof that having got involved in the murky (monkey) business of politics we have dirt on our fingers?

I wonder whose future is on our finger tips, of the country or our own. I am swinging like a pendulum. Some times I feel that what my lone vote can achieve when there is hardly any choice.

I wonder if I should expose myself by declaring that I find all candidates of the same DNA. Illegitimate off springs of naked ambition or should I play safe & waste my vote on an independent so that the anti left candidate from my constituency (a born rabble rouser & trouble maker ) can be shown that I am not exactly helpless.

The little finger is normally used to indicate the call of nature this time it is call of duty. I am sure but for divine intervention vote I must for nothing else to feel lighter & to prove to myself that I am not an idiot. While summing up & signing off I am humming an old number

Nanhe munne bacche teri muthi main kya hai
Mutthi main hai takdir hamari
humne kismet ko bas main kiya hai
O little child what is there in your clinched fist
My fist contains the key to my future
I am the master of my destiny

This time the destiny - our own as well as of this great nation is on our finger tips. So what we are waiting for…Just give to them where it hurts ….most. After all bottom line does count. Howsoever, large be the top line.