One wedding and the elections: Getting married during the most-awaited assembly polls in recent times is bad timing

Syed Asim Ali

The much-awaited day was here; for the moment, all issues were of little moment. My poet friend Ameer Imam, a Sahitya Akademi Yuva Praskar winner for his verse-making skills, got married. He hosted a walima (reception) for family and friends at his Nooriyo Sarai residence in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh.

Before I started motoring for a twohour long journey from Aligarh with three other friends, I decided not to mar my blissful mood by hearing or speaking babble around the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. After all, it is customary to enjoy these occasions, particularly the Walima of one of your best friends. So, I sat in the passenger seat like a dashboard bobble head, nodding yes to everything, everyone was saying.

“It is too cold today”, said the friend who was driving.I nodded, ‘yes’. “The temperature has dropped due to snowfall in Nanital”, said the guy on the backrest.I nodded, ‘yes’.

Then I caught a glimpse in the rear view mirror of an icy attitude dentist friend, well-known for berating and adept at pouring oily phrases onto turbulent depths that threaten to spill over. He did a consiprational head-bend and spoke into the other guy’s ear, and quickly asked me, “Whom do you think can give a fight to the BJP”?

I knew that with the elections around the corner, this discussion had to come with an indomitable spirit, the air around me got charged and it became difficult to do the head-shaking of a bobble head resin.

“I will vote for any party, you guys think is the best,” I replied in a reassuring voice with calm, even tone of a flight attendant knowing that the grouchy dentist will throw in words as sharp as a locust’s bite.

And then came the snarky barb. “Are you really in this comfortable position and not concerned about who will govern us in the years to come. I know for sure that you will not even bother to vote. It is because of idiots like you that there is always a low voter turnout—and then you whine about bad governance”.

I took the comment on the chin and remained quiet as if my mouth was full of sawdust, because it was impossible for me to come up with clever answers to his nasty remarks. I was vexed. My friends paid no heed to understand that an extended election discussion would crimp the rest of the day for me. The discourse on which religious community will vote the BJP, members of which minority group will fall for the Samajwadi Party, the fading presence of Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party in the state and the voting patterns in Western and Eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh continued.

I kept nodding like the cute puppy on the dashboard, until I became a blur in the election talk. And just when I was happy to be a smudge at the edge of everybody’s vision during the poll blather, we got gridlocked. The traffic tie-up made the road passing around a village some 25 kilometers away from Sambhal look like an ashtray crammed with cigarette butts, only in this case, instead of the doused stubs there were people riding atop packed trucks and cars and some carrying a cut-out of an Indian map showing their leader Akhliesh Yadav as the next chief minister.

My back was unkindly hit by the flat of the dentist’s hand. “Asim Sahab, VOTE FOR THE SAMAJWADI PARTY,” he yelled in a voice as if heavy steel doors separated us. I again nodded, ‘yes’ pretending to be snug as a bug in a rug, unmindful of the election jabbering in the car.

As soon as we moved out of the road congestion, the friend who was driving whooshed the car with the remaining distance to make up for the lost time. In about 20 minutes, we reached the venue, where the groom, Ameer Imam in a dashing ensemble of a pewter grey pea coat and black trousers worn with a white shirt stood awaiting us. We got out of the car and took turns to bear-hug the groom.

Instantly as he asked us, “What took you guys so long? A bike rally, one of the favourite campaigning tools of several political parties zipped the road by the venue with the rallying cry of ‘Yogi, Yogi’ turning the peaceful, unhurried wedding ambiance into a charged atmosphere.

“It is a funny way to intimidate. We take this harbingering warning as a joke, no matter what they do if they come in power again, we will vote for the Samajwadi Party”, said a cousin of the groom, who had also come to receive us.

Ameer Imam escorted us to the patio of his house, talking all the while. “Had I known, if a meeting with you was only possible on my walima, I would have indulged in polygamy,” he said bursting out into laughter.

Within minutes, I was pushing my way to the overcrowded barbeque counter to get a plate filled with ‘Sambali Kebabs’ to relish the freshly