India’s Idols
When I returned to my hometown, Siliguri, from a long stay abroad this summer, one of the first changes I noticed was the attitude of the young Nepali man who drives our car. Two things caught my attention: a silver ring with the letter 'P' on his left hand, and a little sticker that he had pasted on the centre of the steering wheel. Dawa knew that I hated stickers being glued to my car, and yet he had allowed himself this indulgence.
I, diffidently, investigated from the rear seat: Vote for Prashant Tamang, read the sticker. It did not take me long to find out who Prashant Tamang was. From the Bagdogra airport to Siliguri, there were posters of the Nepali Indian Idol contestant everywhere – glued to tree trunks and lampposts, on hoardings next to Shahrukh Khan, on car rears and house fronts in Gurungbasti, a locality with a pronounced Nepali population. For the next several days, everywhere I went Prashant's face followed me, and with him, a trail of numbers – 52525, an incantation that seemed to have hypnotised my town and its neighbours. I began to hear stories of local patriots, of young men staying awake all night long, not at defence outposts or research laboratories, but at temporary telephone booths, erected by benevolent telephone companies and shrewd politicians, hungry for proxy votes.