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Last week, Mr and Mrs Iyer were hell-bent on being responsible Mumbaikars and exercise their democratic right. So they decided to cut short their annual trip to Coimbatore and fly down to Mumbai on the day of the BMC election. Unfortunately, it wasn't an easy journey...
Firstly, they had a fight with an autorickshaw driver in Coimbatore, where meters are simply showpieces in three-wheelers and what would be a minimum fare of Rs 9 in Mumbai balloons into a minimum of Rs 40 in the land of Karunanidhi, who's too busy gifting TVs, rice and trying to rewrite the constitution so that he doesn't have to be embarrassed in his own state by the Supreme Court order regarding reservations.
The Iyers wanted to come back so that they could vote out their current corporator who stoned cars and shops in his own ward during a bandh and offered no helping hand during annual monsoon madness.
Once on the flight, the Iyers found themselves seated at the emergency exit. The stewardess informed Mr Iyer that the door weighs 15 kilos. She asked, "Are you prepared to open it in case of an emergency?" Mr Iyer replied, "Just put a tray of flight food in front of me and see how quickly I open that door!"
She pointed out that this was a low-cost-no-food airline. Mr Iyer wished they'd booked on Kingfisher Airlines, where he'd have whetted his appetite watching stewardesses walking down the aisle as if they were on the ramp!
When they landed in Mumbai, the Iyers had just about enough time to reach their polling booth. So they took an autorickshaw and told the driver to hurry. The driver tried hard and kicked his autorickshaw into top speed - only to run into a jam caused by a traffic signal that wasn't working.
Then they inched past the chaos and ran into frantic repairing work on the highway, forcing them to take a diversion down a lane with enough potholes to simulate a drive on the moon.
Two days later, the results were announced and they learnt that the corporator in their ward had defeated his nearest rival by a margin of two votes! The winner took out a procession to thank all those who didn't participate in the voting process!
Mr and Mrs Iyer wondered if all those bad roads, diversions and failed traffic lights were just a conspiracy to stop them from voting!
