Two years ago, Chandran had come by on Election morning, with the "voting slips" and rather awkwardly offered me Rs.50 per vote. This year, he offered Rs.150 per vote. (The voting slips this time were distributed by the schoolmaster, and had no party affiliation). I refused once again, asking him to put it in the hundi at the temple on my behalf. But the amount -Rs.150- here, in the back of beyond, gives one a handle on the scale of the "money for vote" transaction: Staggering!

Of course, I heard from disgruntled people later on, that Chandran gave them only Rs.100 per vote, and that he was given Rs.250, no Rs.300 per person to distribute. God, too is part of this deal: the temples in the villages get the first "money for vote",  Rs.2500/-.

This time around, Sonati was also at home, and the two of us set off at about 8.30 am and were surprised at the length of the queue already formed. Sonati joined the ladies' and I joined the gents' queue. In spite of the hottest summer in 10 years, and perhaps the hottest day this summer, the carnival atmosphere was great to see.

Old people and mothers with infant children were allowed to jump the queue; this led to a few comic interludes: Young boys and girls who could by no stretch of the imagination claim that status became, for the day, babes-in-arms. There was also an alleged traffic in babies, which led one wag to comment that the babies, too, should have their index fingers marked with indelible ink.

One (not very) old woman -a friend of ours and a rogue- was bent over, and staggered in following a bent old man into the polling booth. On the way out she was magically erect and much younger than when she went in.

Most of this queue-jumping was taken in good part. In fact, Sonati, too was being exhorted by the women in the queue to jump the queue: "You are not used to the sun, we are; go on, go ahead". But Sonati didn't.

We had to wait for close to two hours, and since I did not have a cell phone, I had to borrow one and call Badri Baba at home to do the re-kneading and second rise of the bread that I had started in the morning. The actual vote-casting was pretty smooth and when we emerged, we hailed all the people we knew in the queue and moved out.

At Gopal's kadai, Gopal's wife ushered us indoors because her shop was in the 200m "no gathering" zone, and she had already been warned by the police not to let people hang around. We ate a banana each, and left for home, flashing our index fingers at whoever we passed by: "Vote potaachu".