By Nebil Nizar
The year 2004 witnessed many dramatic scenes and is still etched in my memory mainly for the exit poll predictions which took a beating and the renaissance of the Congress party in India, trouncing the BJP-led NDA, which declared a premature election eyeing an easy win. The statistics, arithmetic geniuses put their hands on head in complete shock and asked themselves, how, why?
Cut to 2014. A friend of mine, Waseem,
a PhD scholar at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University said to me
about a barber at K.C Center,
located inside their campus, who is well informed on Indian politics. I decided
to check out for myself and met him.
As he went on with his ‘mission’ with comb and scissors, I tried to
engage him in a conversation. He asked me what was special about 1966. I passed
his ‘entrance test’, and he now opened his treasure house of knowledge.
Next five to ten minutes, Shankar Das, a hairdresser, was vocal about the West
Bengal politics. My first mission ended on reservations about his analysis.
Two weeks later, when I was glancing through that week’s major periodicals, what all said by Shankar Das was on black
and white. My admiration for the man peaked. I called on him once again
and told him what I read on paper. He smiled, and delivered a brief lecture on
National politics. His also liked to take questions and answered them
logically.
Rajdeep Sardesai in his latest book 2014: The elections that changed
India says about his encounter with a key Team Rahul Gandhi member. CNN IBN’s
editor was bombarded with the abysmal statistics of a state where election was
in the pipeline. Finally when results were out, Congress was mopped off. Before
parting, I asked Shankar how he made political observations correctly. He
smiled and civilly said: I am
aware of the ground reality.
(Originally published at http://madtyapost.com/better-than-arithmetic-lions/ )
