Youth make a difference

When three women, in their fifties, show immense interest in the fortunes of a young man, they are not being naughty!
At least not the three I got to know on Thursday.
They were being truly political.
I am at the Anna University counting centre, keeping a tab on the fortunes of candidates in a few city constituencies.
The campus building may be part of the heritage of this campus, but the hall where we are in is no better than the Central Jail, though I haven't yet been to the latter.
It is stuffy, smelly and you can easily get dehyderated here in the heat of May.
And yet, a group of us dig in. Because the counting of votes is very much a part of the exciting and educative part of an election process.
But in the age of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), the countng process is over in a matter of hours.
A click here, a click there and a tap on some buttons, and the tally rolls out. Though, if there are a bunch of independent candidates in the fray ( and God knows why they choose to throw their hats in), all you get to see is a blinking series of zeroes!
On that Thursday morning, there were a flurry of messages on my cell phone. And calls. Including calls from three women who were keenly interested in only thing - how was the Lok Paritran candidate faring in the constituency?
With the results out, it is evident that despite their late debut in the election, the young men who contested on behalf of the Lok Paritran party, have not only impressed seniors and young people and women in the 50s, but also notched a fairly decent percentage of the votes polled in the places where they were in the fray in the city of Chennai.
And this has created a buzz around.
That there are people who are willing to make a difference and that there are people who are willing to vote for that difference.
So there is no time to lose.
Yet another election will be with us very soon.
The elections to the Corporation of Chennai, the civic body, are due in October this year.And these are the elections that mean a lot at the grassroots.
A process which matters most to you and to me. So there is no time to lose if we are to build on a new enthusiasm.
Clearly, there are still huge sections of the educated and the well-off who sat tight on May 8.
It is time that activists start engaging them. To get them to be invoved in public issues.
October isn't far away.