But mere capability never won a war, internal to the self or external to the conscience. If any of my mutant friends realised that she was a twin - and had my unerring instinct towards electoral angst, as a bonus to me - she didn't cross my path. (All of us together could most likely have set up a political - or not so political - party of our own.). We extra-legal enfranchisees probably lay very mild spoors. Paralysed by Providence and far too much choice than that decreed by the Constitution, I think we waffle more than that decreed by the Constitution.
Not that provenance in this election, as in the previous ones, was a matter of joy, even the silly joy that accompanies a perfectly legal illegality. You've got to have something to choose, some measure of elasticity or boulder-holding capability between two brands of underwear. You can't have both falling around your patellae after the first wash.
But that's what the battle of the hustings came down to, at least where I am supposed to vote from. I'm in South Delhi, an arena as indicative, I suppose, of the electoral mood of the nation as, um, Cherrapunji. There is not much flex of pick between a Rightwing sloth and a former finance minister with a responsibility phobia as broad as his forehead.
It was an overlapping caste vs class act on a single stage, and in that it was different from the slugfests otherwhere. The former finance minister's erudition called, and the "intelligentsia" streamed in - all manner of pretenders to the intellectual chair, pledging to vote for the man, not the party. Eh? The handmaidens of honesty? There is a term made obsolete by the contemporary intelligentsia - the "class enemy". I think it ought to be revived: it's sorely needed.

It's was as disingenuous a drama as you could hope to get: the South Delhi "middle-class-and-upward" cast of extras wouldn't vote for Manmohan Singh because it supported the man, not the party; it wouldn't vote for the BJP because although it has nothing much against A B Vajpayee the man, it hates the party. Gimme reasons, I remember sobbing in frustration to myself in my head, better reasons! All I got was a resounding silence. Oh, bugger it.
So I did what I had done in the earlier elections, two votes and all. I let them go. I chose not to vote. If you think of a better alternative before the next elections next year, or have a split electoral personality, call me. There's two of me waiting to hear from you.