Fast forward

Deep inside western UP’s sugarcane-growing region, where corruption is a way of life, an afternoon conversation at a small-town grocery store isn’t about the monsoon. Instead, the portly shopkeeper and his customers would much rather deliberate Anna Hazare’s renewed movement and Pranab Mukherjee’s elevation to the top of Raisina Hill. Hazare’s fight against corruption won’t work, the shopkeeper declares, because, after all, he’s been unable to stop Mukherjee. “Oh, those crowds won’t come again and again,” he adds, “Anna can keep fasting but Pranab is relaxing now in a very big house.”