For the last few days, I have lived in limbo land. I am back home, I am back in Delhi and yet, I feel lost.It's expected, I guess. After moving upto 400 kms sometimes in a day, it's a little disconcerting to lead a stationary life. To lead a life in a city that has 1.1 crore people. Throughout our journey, all the places we visited apart from Kolkata and Hyderabad, had around 10 lakh voters. Small communities whose voices were seldom heard. I'm back now in the cacophony of city life where TV reporters like me are fighting with each other to reflect the opinions and concerns of a handful.
 
Take May 16th, for instance, judgment day for our country's politicians. After my bus separation, I was stationed at the home of Amar Singh, to cover the fourth front. Why Amar Singh? Because Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan were not going to venture to Delhi till they knew what their worth was for either the UPA or the third front wallahs. So, at 6.30 in the morning, two teams of NDTV landed at 27, Lodhi Estate, jostling for space with 30 other journalists all ready to jump for his bite. Everyone knows the possible scenarios - unlike the indiscernible voters who would keep the journalist guessing till the last minute, politicians are usually predictable. Amar Singh had made it clear till the day before counting day that they were going to do some hard bargains. Congress Party and we were readying ourselves for the endless negotiations that might follow. 'Just follow Amar Singh' was my brief; after following voters across the country, I seriously wanted to cry.
 
I honestly swear that it's not because of my political affiliations that I said silent prayers, when the verdict came. As we sat in the make-shift, air-conditioned press room watching plasma screens that had been installed for us over endless cups of chai, we all dreaded a long-drawn out government formation process. But by 10 am, it was clear that UPA was back and they didn't the fourth front either. The ever-willing Amar Singh suddenly developed camera-shyness and while Congress leaders fell over each other to congratulate themselves and more importantly, Rahul Gandhi, fourth front fathers were silently calculating their next move.
 
I tried to calculate the fate of all those who the Election Express had met on the campaign trail. I'm glad I never pretended to figure out their prospects. Older and wiser journalists had been proved wrong, the voter had outsmarted them all.

One of the first figures we followed was Raj Babbar in a brand new constituency of Fatehpur Sikri. It seems that while Agra had tolerated his inefficiency, Fatehpur Sikri truly wanted a fresh start. Royals held on to their fiefdom in Gwalior and Guna but Yashodhara Raje Scindia's margin had really gone down. We met many Mayawati loyalists in Jhansi, the 11-year-old who spoke in English about Behenji but it seems the majority just went with the Congress - a trend that was repeated in many parts of UP. Perhaps the lesson was in the 80-year-old loyalist we met. He had given away everything to the BSP and had got nothing in return - he was okay with that but his son was not.
 
Narendra Modi certainly ruled in both the Gujarat cities (Vadodara and Surat) we went to and obviously dynasty works in other parties as well - as Sameer Bhujbal showed in Nashik and Supriya Tai showed in Baramati and Jagan Reddy showed in Kadapa. Reddy showed his opponent that a Stanford degree wasn't enough to win in YSR territory. I wonder if P Shrikanth Reddy and other plus in the race were going to give up or keep fighting. Naveen Patnaik, of course, had nothing to fight but complacency in his state. His people loved him and it was clear to see how he was doing certain things just right in the state like having a zero tolerance of misdemeanours within his party. But after having gone to poorer districts like Mayurbhanj and Balasore, I hoped that Patnaik would pay as much attention to them as he did to beautiful Bhubaneswar. Constant power shouldn't affect him like it has the Left in West Bengal or Lalu Yadav in Bihar. The power of positive thinking and tapping the aspiration of the people actually worked for Nitish Kumar but they are counting on him to deliver on all those development projects.
 
Finally, I thought about the man we met in our last stop, Pilibhit. Varun Gandhi who had dominated the media during the entire election campaign. His pitch had drowned all other voices, the voice of many Muslims, of secularists, who blamed the media for making a hero of him. I tried to explain that the media was only trying to expose what seemed wrong, what seemed to go against the idea of India, but maybe they were right. Just by giving him so much space, had we in fact, deified him? After all, when the Election Express asked voters in Pilibhit why they were voting for Varun Gandhi, ordinary people (not hate-spewing activists) simply said that it's because he'd put an unknown place like Pilibhit on the map!
 
I had an off-the-record conversation with Varun Gandhi after my last show. As he hasn't played fully fair in this campaign, I toyed with the idea of breaking my word and reporting what he'd said. But that would mean disrespect for my profession, for my ethics. All I can say is that he didn't seem to regret anything that had happened throughout the campaign and he didn't even think it necessary to even pay lip service to some of the idealism that many equate with youth leaders these days. Varun Gandhi sat smug in the expectation of a huge margin and it was delivered. We have to accept that he too is a reflection of what the people want.
 
As soon as it became clear, that the government formation was going to be on expected lines, I opted out. After 8 weeks of producing a daily half-hour show, I finally accepted my fatigue - yes, I want to go home and not keep talking to Amar Singh or any other politician. If I work, I want to work surrounded by real people who have real problems (not power-sharing but bijli, sadak, paani) but continue to find the courage to laugh and be happy and live their lives knowing that India has given them the biggest power of all- the power of democracy. Many of you, out of the kindness of your heart, have suggested that the Bus keeps going to find out how the government is doing, whether it keeps it's promises. Maybe, you should start a petition for NDTV because if it again goes on the road, I'm already signed up.
 
Till then, I'm thinking of ways to engage myself. After all, I don't have to hit the road tonight. Maybe, I should write a book about it all, more reason to day dream about the Bus. The Bus and the 14,713 kilometres of experiences across the map.