Here's Jaal's read reckoner:

The language tutor: Sonia G no longer stumbles over Italianated Hindi, she also garbles pidgin Kannada in Bellary. And rival Haryanvi Sushma Swaraj spends 18 whole minutes enthralling the local votes in their native lingo, though to them it may sound more like greek. And T N Seshan waddles around Gandhinagar promising to learn Gujarati within three months. Is it any surprise that language academies are flourishing? Tutors have an easy job, of course. After all, their students are masters of doublespeak. And candidates can now defraud the public with their forked tongues emitting spoonfed words.

Accountants: Blast the Election Commission. All those curbs on spending. Anyhow, each candidate now retains the services of a posse of accountants who are experts at fudging figures (no, not as in describing Sushmaji as svelte). People with experience in preparing Central Budgets are therefore preferred. So even though a candidate may flood a constituency with booze, have a cavalcade of cars, spend lavishly on their favourite activity of self-promotion, the audited results show their modest returns (including the deduction for forfeiting their deposits).

Musclemen: Since the wealth of the candidate's muscle is concentrated between their ears and headbutting has been banned by the EC, they scour local akharas to add some weight to their campaign. These aren't any old goondas, they are skilled craftsmen well versed in booth capturing, ballot stuffing, voter intimidating, queue jamming and other assorted esoterica. The way to go towards perfecting a half nelson on democracy.

Advertising agencies: The toughest job of them all - to make the candidates look good, appear honest, committed to the welfare of the populace and earnest. As they call it, mission impossible. Qualified personnel include those who can convince voters that the Earth is indeed flat contrary to propaganda they may have otherwise been subjected to, and airbrush those horns on their wards' heads into a halo.

Web designers: Now not only do candidates pollute the real world, they have also gone virtual. Websites are the norm, even for candidates contesting seats where residents have never even seen an electric pole. But that, of course, has thrown the EC into a quandary. When the period for campaigning ends, does it order the websites blocked?

Pollsters: There are so many opinion polls, that the country could do with an opinion poll on them. Millions of pollsters spread around to the remotest villages (at least to the nearest township where AC hotel rooms are available as they coolly contrive the numbers), seeking the views of the voters. Results depend on more important considerations. Like which candidate can afford to pay more. For instance, a great pollster will meet a quarry with a query like: ``Candidate A (the paymaster) is brilliant, honest, will be granted sainthood shortly and Candidate B is a dirty, rotten scumbag who would sell his own grandmother. Who will you vote for?''

Film Stars: Unemployed Bollywoodians are in demand, to add glamour to the campaign of candidates who want their profile to rise from dull to somewhat dull. Among those who have adorned platforms have been Chunky Pandey, Pooja Batra, Sonu Walia and Rahul Roy. Unfortunately, none of them even enjoyed seven-and-a-half-minutes of fame, and are in the perilous situation of not even being offered bit roles in television serials. So, since they are vela, they are available.

Finally, public meeting and rallies: If you ever wondered how these politicians managed to attract such huge crowds to listen to hypocritical homilies and wretched rhetoric, there you have it. With thousands of tutors, accountants, ad executives, PR people, film stars, musclemen, pollsters, web designers, pet journalists, thronging the venue, who cares if the actual voter is more interested in indulging in more stimulating pursuits like sitting at home and twiddling the thumbs.