Housing Society Elections

By Prantik Mitra

Under the somewhat bright luminescence of the recessed lights and on assorted chairs passersby’s and nose-pokers reported few human figures clustered together.

Their silhouette in the dim light looked hilarious and their demeanor even more.

They all had different hues of bewilderment writ over their faces. Some thought it also bordered around utter confusion and dismay.

They were the committee members of Tricity Promenade.

Some had no prior experience of such an office, some had some experience, some irrespective of such experience knew everything and some with lots of experience knew nothing. When they all spoke, they just spoke, and no one heard them, and they never heard each other. Everyone spoke assuming that the others were hearing, and, in the end, no one heard anyone but, somehow, they managed to reach some sort of resolution.

Some agreed some disagreed, some just sat there looking neutral, some first agreed and then disagreed, some forgot what they had agreed, and some forgot what they had disagreed but in the end, a resolution was always reached.

Dissent was encouraged but not recorded and at the end of a meeting, they all emerged peacefully happy, or sadly peaceful. The show, however, went on without a failure and the juggernaut rolled on.

Today however was a different day. Elections had been announced and Damant who knew the bylaws by rote had circulated an elaborate notification. Some understood it, some were trying to understand it, and some did not bother. These human figures clustered together, in any case, had various thoughts crisscrossing their minds. They had been initially selected to the committee but now there was an election coming and they looked at each other as rival candidates. They hid from each other their emotions, their thoughts, and their plans and just looked at each other. Each looked at the other and the other looked back. Finally, they dispersed with various schedules of activities in mind.

The fighters and frigates were out the next day as various residents schemed and plotted and spent time in hidden corners and spoke in hushed tones and looked at each other with amusement and suspicion.

In the meantime, kabhishek and Roumyadeep were announced as the returning officers and presiding officers and they got down to their work in a rhythmic manner. Many felt they were at the wrong place and should have been in the election commission, but fate had consigned them to the society elections of Tricity Promenade. With gusto and pride, they took to their job, defined the process, created codes of conduct, and stealthily investigated the activities and movements of residents and made notes.

It was another matter that later when they referred to their notes they were unable to decipher what they had written.

Nishal chose a Sunday to launch a plan. He called upon Rachin, Dagar, Nityanad, and Digvijay at the Society office. They met and engaged themselves in filing nominations for the elections. First Nishal filed his nomination and then Rachin too filed his nomination upon the insistence of Nishal. Nityanad filed as well.

Dagar and Digvijay were confused, and they wanted to go out to buy chicken rather than get into nomination filing. There were so adamant about it that to stop them a hoax bomb call was made to the chicken vendor who quickly downed his shutters and ran home leaving the hapless chickens to deal with the bomb in a matter they collectively deemed fit with their chickenesque intelligence.

With the chicken matter thus sorted they were finally cajoled into filing their nomination, but they did so on the condition that they would check with other like-minded people too and find out if they too were willing to file their nominations.

On another floor, Rehmadait Bhai took the lead and started preparations for filing his nomination. Damant too picked up his pen and Niranand needed some convincing to agree to file his. Prantik was in Kolkata, and he filed his nomination through a remote process with the use of Whatsapp with Nishal and Nishal completed the balance of the process.

While we shall come back to Sunday a little later but as of now let us move forward in time. By this time the main WhatsApp group was abuzz with various thoughts, arguments, and counter-arguments. Logics and their counter could have put the elections of Bihar, UP and West Bengal to shame. It was gradually evolving through the colorful comments on the WhatsApp group that India and various political parties of India had lost many astute politicians.

It was India’s loss and Tricity Promenade’s gain. Three cheers to Tricity Promenade.

Back to Sunday. Sambhavna was requested to join by the party who had assembled in the office room. She was very clear in her thoughts. She would not fight the elections, she would not be on the committee, but she would be ready to do any work for the society. Such freedom fighters were rare in today’s world and the rest of the group looked at her with great suspicion and thought that she might file her papers quietly later. While they smiled outwardly, they keep looking at her from the corner of their eyes to discern any asymmetrical behavior.

Araddha hopped onto the scene and filed her nomination quite oblivious to the selfless thoughts of Sadhbhavna. In the meanwhile, Manjit opened a dialogue with someone and decided to file his nomination. He felt elated and decided to spend a couple of extra hours at the Gym breaking a bolt of the multigym in the process and then had to later go through various layers of approvals to buy a simple nut which eventually was not reimbursed to him. A stigma he carried and has been carrying for a long time. However, he has not been sure who to blame. The elections, the society, the committee, the builder, or himself. As a memory, he has preserved the old broken nut. Many a time he values it more than the Monalisa at Louvre.

Razia hopped from one floor to the other and later people discovered that she had ended up in the committee.

Poornima felt Acharya was better and Acharya felt Poornima was better suited for the job. In the process, the couple proved that they understood each other very well. While they were debating this Shashikaran quickly hurried back from the market, filed his nomination with the speed of Rafael fighter jet, and vanished into the clouds.

In the meanwhile, the debate was settled, and Poornima filed her nomination. Raigiri was genuinely not interested whereas Vilas was sentimentally not interested. There is a history to his sentiments.

Meanwhile, Ruchira was approached. Various Hindi film songs had to be sung to her to get her to finally agree to file the nomination. She wanted to write some lyrics on the nomination paper but realized that such a thing could disqualify her so she refrained from it with the thought that if elected she would have enough time to sing songs at committee meetings because singing songs was better than sitting on a committee that would discuss nothing and derive nothing but talk about anything and everything.

Shrupti was clearly not interested, and Gandelkar kaka had to be taken through a two-hour counseling session on a couch in a dark room and at the end of it, he was so hypnotized that he just filed the nomination form and ran to the terrace to complete the remainder of his morning walk. Damant the counselor was himself amazed by the result of his therapy.

Saajish filed his nomination but Roumya contrary to the customs of Bengal was noninterested in elections at all. He took a stand that he could not fight elections against friends. It was a noble thought, but the nobility was lost on the group. In any case, he was the returning officer and thus could not contest any which ways.

A few days later a volcano erupted. The hot molten lava spilled into the promenade WhatsApp group.

Arfaraz got to know of the Sunday meeting a few days later and thought that Brutus and his companions were planning to murder Caesar. He ran through Wikipedia and knowledge books and put his entrepreneurship experience into practice and concluded that lobbying had happened. Rehmadait Bhai the banker was brought in to do some research work and the ever-vigilant patrons found proof in the form of a tea bill which was sent to the treasurer. This was like the last nail in the coffin of ethics (not sure why ethics should be in the coffin in the first place). The tea bill sprang up like a black panther leaping from one person to another and various people reached the conclusion that this was a well-designed plot to siphon society funds. The WhatsApp group conversations now turned to accusations and moral policing.

It later came to light that the highly learned Society Manager had by mistake sent the bill to the treasurer instead of sending it to Nishal who had ordered for the tea in his personal capacity. When questioned later about this brainwave the society manager was very clear with his logic that anything consumed within the society office was an official matter and needed official treatment. To date, he is not able to understand why the bill should not have been sent to the treasurer. He has kept a photocopy of the bill and has referred the matter to a council of lawyers who are analyzing it. Their legal opinion is expected in 5 to 7 working years.

However, the tea bill created history as the treatment of it and what followed hurt the sentiments of the group that had gathered. A sentimental chain reaction got triggered.

Digvijay withdrew his nomination instantly. The rest followed suit - Niranand, Shashikaran, Poornima, Gandelkar kaka, Saajish. The tea vendor was in the news the next day having upset the entire apple cart of elections.

He has become so popular that nowadays in municipal elections contesting candidates order tea from his shop and send it to the other. There is a general feeling that such a move would likely trigger the withdrawal of the nomination by the opponent. Various Psephologists are collecting data from this tea vendor to analyze this trend.

Eventually, Nishal and Rachin withdrew their nominations too as a move of solidarity and in support of all those who had withdrawn.

Manjit is a man of words. Once filed he did not want to withdraw his nomination. He felt his actions were independent of the actions of others. He stayed put.

In the meanwhile, another group was busy discussing the filing of nominations. On the final night of nomination at about 10.00 pm (as per reports) Damant submitted forms of Shivanand, Rehmadait, Razia, Barbachin, Ruchira, Arfaraz, and self. The media got wind of it and projected it as breaking news. The people who had filed their nomination sensed lobbying here and questioned if theirs was lobbying and why this was not. The matter has not been settled yet with the 10 PM group feeling that filing a lot of nominations together did not tantamount to lobbying.

The matter stands referred to an expert group of politicians who in turn are consulting more politicians.

While everyone was busy with everything but doing nothing Brhamakaran filed his nomination. Rumour has it that he repented it later.

A large section of women in the society felt that the men filing their nominations were a misfit. Come to think of it, if the man of the house was not efficient in household work how would he be efficient in managing a society.

These women however made a cardinal mistake. They did not realize that managing a society was like managing a circus. You just had to do nothing or do something, and all others would only laugh at you. It was such a simple job.

In the end, elections were held. No one remembers who won and who lost.

A committee was formed, and the new show of the circus started again.

Long Live Tricity Promenade

By Prantik Mitra