I guess I am a responsible voter.

My responsibility as a voter ends on ballot day.

My constitutional duty actually takes the shape of a sort of innate excitement that begins a few weeks before the elections. With much amusement, I observe the days of frenzied activity, when prospective candidates and political supporters diligently and respectfully make the rounds of individual houses, parks and other public places, extolling their virtues and their opponents’ vices.

I enjoy watching these wannabe leaders literally bend backwards to impress voters with their sincerity, integrity, purity and efficiency. Like the vast majority of the names on the voters’ list, I too entertain their personal requests for my vote with a smile and a nod, and listen patiently as they assure me of uninterrupted water supply, tarred roads in my residential colony, or an effective solution to the mosquito menace if they are voted into power.

As an educated voter, I don’t bother to find out if the candidate is qualified enough to meet my expectations. I never find out about his educational or professional qualifications. I don’t speak to him about why he has entered politics. I don’t talk to him about his dreams for the constituency. I never bother to discuss the various strategies he may — or should — have devised to redress the grave issues faced by society today.

I merely accept the printed election manifesto and pamphlets handed out to me and, once I shut the door after the group leaves, nonchalantly dump them on the side table without a second glance.

There they get buried under a load of other similar unwanted stuff, which soon ends up in the rubbish bin.

The day of the election, I accompany my family to the nearby school that has been allotted to us as per the Election Commission’s directives, and take pride in the dark mark on the nail of my forefinger — proof of the fact that I have discharged my constitutional duty as a responsible, adult citizen of this great democratic nation.

Till the next ballot, which could be a good many years away, I take full advantage of my constitutional right to freedom of speech to grumble, whine, complain, criticise, mock and voice my concerns to others, the majority of whom fall into the same category as me.

At the end of it all, I resign myself to a condemned life at the hands of corrupt leaders and join the chorus of voices eloquent enough to proclaim that ‘our country will soon go to the dogs’!

And the selfsame comfortable cycle continues every five years.

I guess I am a responsible voter.