Being with a candidate for a whole day as s/he goes about seeking votes can, after a point, feel as monotonous and infuriating as listening to a defective music system that plays the same stanza of a song again and again and again.
The candidate's convoy stops at a busy junction, he steps out, gets garlanded by local party workers, he removes the welcome garlands, hands it over to an aide, and then, followed by enthusiastic flag-waving partymen, walks along a shop-lined sidewalk, stopping briefly before shops and passersby to ask for a vote and to shake a hand. Those he cannot touch -- mostly passengers inside cars and buses caught in the brief traffic chaos -- he waves at. He pauses for friendly chats with women and children waiting for buses under sheds constructed using his own MP funds, meets auto drivers and enters the boisterous local market reeking of fish and rot. He crosses the road to the other side where he will do the same thing. Then he will get into his air-conditioned car and speeds away.
The car stops at yet another busy junction. He steps out, gets garlanded… the elaborate vote-seeking drill is played out again, and then again and again in 25 more junctions right till the moon appears on a star-spangled summer sky.
Street-shy Tharoor
But what makes Thiruvananthapuram's Congress candidate Shashi Tharoor's vote-catching drill less monotonous is the earnestness he brings to the exercise, which starts from his home at 9 in the morning. It is not the Tharoor with the Oxford-class debator's 'try throwing at me any damn question' confidence that one encounters on the street. (Of course, the familiar Tharoor was in full show when he answered questions posed by the girls of All Saints College later in the day.)
This Tharoor looked a bit unsure, vulnerable even. Once he stepped out into a junction, the local party workers, both men and women, took complete control of him. They led him around the place like he was the bridegroom they had always been boasting about. And Tharoor, with his boyish partly-embarrassed smile, looked every bit the bridegroom who had been made self-conscious by all the attention. This natural bashfulness, street-shyness, had the effect of making this former diplomat and best-selling author more relatable.
Sister's sacrifice
The campaign team is also extra careful to mask the gloss of his privileged existence. Because, giving Tharoor chase this time is BJP's Kummanam Rajasekharan, a man revered for his simple living. Tharoor's younger sister, Shobha Tharoor, has come all the way from California to campaign for him. Despite the wicked summer heat, Shobha refuses to hold even an umbrella as she walks alongside her brother canvassing votes. “I have sunglasses in the car but I won't wear it lest I come across as aloof. I saw many people, especially women, selling things in the open with no protection from the sun. Me having sunglasses on while I walk these streets will not look good,” Sobha told Onmanorama.
Tharoor's Jaadu ki Jhappi
Tharoor gets to be in a junction for just about half an hour and meets about 300-500 people. Still, for most part of the day, he did not give the impression of being in a hurry. Also, surprisingly for Tharoor, he is super-economical with words. He speaks just a bare functional sentence, at the most two. Even then he manages to convey that the person's vote means a lot. “Oru vote tharanam,” or “Shashi Tharoorinu oru vote,” he would say on seeing a voter. “Kudumbathodum parayanam,” rarely he might add. But then at the next instant he does not turn his head away and walk to the next person.
His look lingers on the person for just that extra moment, enough perhaps to establish trust. It will seem as though Tharoor was trying to tell the voter that he was tempted to talk more but was too pressed for time. This method of his, whether done involuntarily or cultivated, seems effective. No person Tharoor had talked to walked away after the fleeting interaction like they have shrugged off a momentary bother. They looked touched.
Mistaken identity
Tharoor committed blunders, too. At Venganoor, near Ayyankali's memorial, he came across youths dressed up for a Kerala Pulaya Maha Sabha rally. One of the boys was slit-eyed and had a hair with a slight brown tint. Thinking he was from the northern side of the country, he asked him: “Kya aap vote kar sakte hain?” (Can you vote this time?) For a moment the boys did not understand why Tharoor spoke in Hindi. Soon, they burst out laughing. “Sir, ivan Malayali aanu, (Sir, he is a Malayali)," one of them called out. Tharoor had by then advanced but he turned back and returned a smile. It is not sure whether Tharoor realised the mistake.
It was only later, when it was nearing dusk and the campaign was running late by more than an hour, that exhaustion started to show on his face. “I am just an ordinary human being,” Tharoor was heard telling local party workers in Poovar who insisted on him visiting another set of shops. It sounded like a feeble protest but he did not oblige them this time; he had six more junctions to cover. From this 9am to 9pm schedule, Tharoor had only taken a break for lunch at 1.30pm just to resume his campaign at 3.30pm.
Nonetheless, Tharoor's larger than life persona can make him seem forbidding, especially for those in the rural areas of the constituency. The man has been around for a decade but his voters are still not sure how to respond to him. Some adults just stood up and offered a polite half smile when he came before them, some stood with their faces down afraid to offer their hand, some looked a bit overwhelmed that a man of his stature has sought a vote from them. But the younger lot, including college girls, were seen flocking him for selfies.
Fisherwomen's anger
However, it was the fisherwomen who were the most expressive with Tharoor. While some lashed out at him for not caring for their needs, there were also those who gave out school-girlish squeals of delight when he draped his shawl around them.
While he was inside the Karamana fish market, two fish vendors ordered Tharoor to come near them. When he came closer, one of them gave him a dressing-down. She quickly interrupted herself to tell Tharoor's aides to translate what she was saying. “He knows only English. So you people tell him exactly what I am saying,” she said. Tharoor looked offended on hearing this. “What are you saying. Haven't you heard me speak in Malayalam,” he said.
Assured that nothing would now be lost in translation, the fish vendor did not mince words: “It was during the last elections that you came here. After that you did not even bother to check whether we were dead or alive.” Tharoor just smiled, and left.
It was up to the local party workers to tell the fisherwomen that issues related to their market was not the MP's responsibility but that of the MLA and councillor. Fisherwomen in Kanjiramkulam, a Nadar area, too heaped the blame for poor water facilities in the market on Tharoor. Here too, Tharoor left with a smile, but without a word.
What went unsaid
It looked like there was a message that Tharoor wanted to send out to his voters but could not. His job was not to deal with local issues but to take Thiruvananthapuram's voice to Delhi and far beyond the borders. He could articulate this to Muttathara Engineering College students, where a small interaction was organised, but not anywhere else. When the students said that they wanted an additional four acres for their college, he bluntly told them that land was not in his hands. “You will have to ask the state government,” he said.
Then, he subtly pressed home his advantage – his oratory skills and his global standing -- over his competitors. “When you are voting, you will be choosing the person who will represent you in Delhi, and who will make your voice heard around the world,” he told the students. But the fisherwomen in Karamana and Kanjiramkulam, who had their daily existence to worry about, were not listening.
