The lights wouldn't work, the talkback failed and we got ourselves the rowdiest onlookers in Bharatpur. But in the end we managed to put out the very first edition of the Election Express and it wasn't half bad!

The people are always the stars of the show. For me, the stars were these women in Mahwa, Dausa. We went to visit them because of a Gujjar and Meena family that lived next to each other.

During the violent protest for reservations that the Gujjars wanted and the Meenas resisted, the Gujjars lost their young son. What intrigued me was the dynamics of their relationship. Did the women who work in the fields stop talking to each other? If not, how do they put it behind them? I don't know whether I was stupid in expecting some kind of deep philosophical explanation. Maybe, I had watched too many Oprah shows where the victim's family reconciles with the perpetrators. There was no such drama and yet, it was astounding.

Suntra Meena and Keshula Gujjar have worked in the fields together every day of their life. Keshula told me that when Gujjar protestors were blocking highways demanding reservations, her  brother-in-law was probably drinking. In his drunken state, he decided to accompany other Gujjar youths of his village and it was his bad luck that he got caught in police firing. "Your relationship with the Meena family didn't change," I asked. "We don't care what happens outside,'' was their simple reply.

They continue to work together in the field and as punishment for asking them such a thing they made me do some work in the field. And I thought that they were shy village women who wouldn't sit on the charpoy because the men were around! So stupid are the presumptions of us city people.

By the way, it may have been the biggest agitation to hit Rajasthan but on the ground, the Gujjar vote doesn't seem to matter too much. Gujjars in Dausa have got a Kashmiri brother to stand as an independent as they are the only ones to fit the bill for the reserved constituency.

Imagine moving from the Valley to the Desert to fight the elections...