ONE WAY TICKET

 Tickets are the life and soul of any politician now a days. No prizes for guessing, I am referring to the much coveted Party ticket for contesting the elections. Actually it should logically be a nomination of candidate from the party for a particular constituency, but it is normally referred to as securing a ticket. Merely getting a ticket does not by any means assure the candidate of winning at the hustings, in fact the hard work and toil commences after that. The rough and tumble of politics, the road shows, door to door canvassing, organising and addressing rallies, keeping the press in good humour and of course during this period pretending to keep the voters at the core of electioneering is by no means an easy task.

We, the masses have had our own trysts with tickets and in fact that is one of our routine struggles, securing a reserved railway ticket is the most difficult amongst these. The others being a cinema ticket, a parking ticket, referred to as challan by the traffic police, bus ticket and so on. For some of us, getting hold of an IPL match ticket holds greater value, though the entertainment in elections is no less, except that the match provides instant gratification. As we strive for the elusive railway ticket during peak season, most of us are prepared to pay extra, use touts and approach our contacts similarly the candidate has to go the extra mile in his pursuit. As Chanakya said in his “Arthshastra”, employ sam, dam, dand, bhed, i.e. first diplomatically, if that doesn’t work, buy it, if that too doesn’t, then use threats of punishment and finally divide the opposition. Our politicos are adept at following this treatise, so fair or foul, means don’t matter, the end result does. All is fair in love, war and elections. So denial of ticket to an aspirant is reason enough for him to seek greener pastures in the rival party.

Ticketless travel is an offence, but there is quite a sizeable population which thrives on this mode of travel without bothering with the hassles of confirmed tickets. The 70s and 80s saw most of us travel by trains, we travelled long distances to go to residential schools after vacation, to the training academies, on postings, on holidays and so on; more often than not despite holding valid tickets to travel we were shown the door. Unlike Mahatma Gandhi in Pietermaritzburg we were not thrown out on the platform, as we were more tactful and managed to survive the journey as reaching the destination was important and could not be compromised. Sometimes it was the good old dollar (a bottle of Rum), sometimes cash was the king and some other times we just had to rough it out, travelling standing next to the toilets or on the vestibule itself. With air travel becoming more affordable we were spared the blushes as even if we had to pay through our nose we could get a confirmed ticket and reach the destination in time.

The other most sought after ticket was a ticket to ride on the ferris wheel, circus or roller coaster. Black marketing of cinema tickets was quite common and I am sure all of us have, sometime or the other paid up that “dus ka bees”, rupees twenty for a ten rupee ticket for a movie which we had to watch and could not get the tickets from the window as the show was supposedly house-full.

 Irony is that as kids we wanted to be taken for a ride and even as grown up adults we are eagerly awaiting our turn, just that now it is not us who gets to buy the ticket, it is our worthy elected representatives who do and we are the ones who are taken for a royal ride every once in five years. How I wish we could sponsor a “One way ticket to the moon!” for quite a few of them.