The thing about leaders is that it's the stuff no one talks about, let alone understands, that makes them appealing. They can lose wars like Jawaharlal Nehru did, be vertically challenged like Lal Bahadur Shastri, sleep through important meetings like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, defy all our expectations of action and ideology - but, if we like them, we like them. That's it. So much for political punditry and TV sophistry.
Who are the leaders with whom we go into this election? The cute-as-a-button, but ever-so-shy Rahul Gandhi, someone any mother would trust her daughter with, but hesitate if it were her country; the stare-the-enemy-down-with-deadly-countenance Narendra Modi, so convinced of his own infallibility that it is unnerving; or the 'Ji I'm so extraordinary, but ordinary' Arvind Kejriwal?
These will be the men who will dominate the political narrative over the next few months and depending on one's own set of likes, dislikes and prejudices and biases, we will vote one of them or the party they represent into power.
Of course, there are others who will grab our attention: the super confident Jayalalithaa with her perfectly formed convent-educated vowels; the raspy-voiced Naveen Patnaik who seems as if he'd be more comfortable at a New York black-tie event than at an Odhisa rally; the inscrutable Sharad Pawar; Nitish Kumar, who appears to enjoy his jousting with Modi more than anything he's ever done; Mayawati, who appears as sulky and dour as her statues; and Mamatadi, almost a caricature of the fiery Bengali woman.
Of course, within the United Progressive Alliance and National Democratic Alliance there are smaller but significant players. Foxy old Digvijaya Singh, often too clever for his own good, sophisticated P Chidambaram, his Cheshire cat smile lingering over Parliament long after it adjourns, Rajeev Shukla, whose career one suspects would have done better had he been a bit taller, and all those young turks in Rahul Gandhi's corner - Milind Deora, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot looking like they pay too much attention to the washing and ironing of their newly-minted Congress uniforms.
And the NDA! Wily Arun Jaitley, who one suspects has the best plan of all, Sushma Swaraj, sharp as a pin, L K Advani, the only man defeated by his own ambition, and. of course, Rajnath Singh, who still seems ill at ease in front of a TV camera, and Nitin Gadkari, whose unfortunate choice of khaki shorts will haunt him for the rest of his life.
And the party spokespeople - who can forget them? Manish Tewari, who one suspects would rather spend the evenings at India International Centre quibbling about the meaning of words with very old and learned men than have to sit through TV debates, Nirmala Sitharaman, who has a terrifying and distracting way of pronouncing words like 'nepotism' and 'Congress' and 'corruption', and Shaina NC and Smriti Irani, urbane smooth and as deadly as the legendary female assassins that Gaddafi once surrounded himself with.
These are the players and the elections are the stage on which they will come and play their parts, say their lines, make us laugh, cry, applaud and weep.
Their speech writers will write them long and important speeches, their spin doctors will tell them what to wear and do, their campaign managers will steer them from husting to husting and their secretaries will advise them who to meet and who to avoid.
But through it all, regardless of this all, it will be the watchful, ever awake, never blinking eye of we, the people, that will decide whom we like and whom we don't, and why.
Elections. They're actually that simple. And scary.
Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com
