Voter’s Card

I had a small correction to make in my voter’s ID card. I was told by many that this will be some ordeal and I wasn’t even assured of getting my card back. With the elections just a week away, these buggers decided to postpone the corrections till the last moment!

Much against all odds, I decided to go for it. First of all I had to visit the corporation office and enquire where this whole thing was being done. Luckily for me, the school was right behind the office.

As soon as I went there, I could see a lot of unruliness. People were standing in different queues without even knowing whether they belonged there. In some places, there was nothing called a line. To add to all this, there was not a single sign/ board which told where to get new card issued, were corrections were made, were people can get duplicates etc.

I managed to find a person who told me what to do. I was asked to fill up some form which asked me 2 fill up my district name, taluk name etc. Hell, I just wanted to correct the mistake in my age! As soon as I handed over the form, the guy asked me if I was sure whether my age in the data base was correct. Well, I am not exactly the DBA you know and I mentioned I didn’t know.

Puff! My old card disappeared and I was asked to stand in the serpentine queue and get a new card issued. I felt like screaming at his face (it was just one small correction) but my 6^th sense decided against it. From then on it took nearly an hour or so to get to the front of the queue and out of nowhere appears a lady and barges ahead of all and applies for her card.

Not many protested and one guy who did was severely blasted by the woman and had to quiet up. More unruliness… At the end of it all, people were speaking to one of the guys issuing the card and asked him why the procedure was so chaotic and had to listen to his version which included the pains with which they go and collect data from every house (which wasn’t his job anyways, he being an engineer), how they are chased away from each house being asked to come back later and all such stuff which were not even remotely a reply to the question.

At the end of it all I did get my card with corrections but not without having something bad to write about. It’s easy to understand their difficulties, but what they are not realizing is if they don’t make this an ordered procedure it is going to remain an ordeal both for them and for us.