Being optimistic... one again

It is once again the same feeling -- Hope mixed with despair, questions and confusions intertwined inside my head as I think of the state of politics in my home town Silchar. Congress has returned to power once again after convincingly beating BJP in the assembly elections. With Susmita Dev as their new face in Silchar, Congress simply swept the valley, winning 13 out of 15 while their prime rival BJP were handed the wooden spoon.

The return of the Congress leaves me with a strange blend of hope and despair. Hope because at least their is a change once again and despair because this change is not change enough. When I try to decipher the probable outcome of this people's verdict, I can't make up my mind where it would lead us to. 

Will it be a new rise for my home town considering that a young, educated, suave and articulate leader will lead this time or it will be the same fate that have waited us for the last so many decades. Will Susmita's vision will be fresh and innovative enough to take Silchar out of the sloth and morass it finds itself in today or it will just be a photocopy of his father and grand father? Will she be daring enough to fight for the rights of the natives of Silchar when she represents us at Dispur or she too will do the job of assurance and reassurance which many before her did with perfection? 

The 36-year-old Susmita, the fourth generation of the Dev family, is a law graduate from England and is considered to have a knack to follow the current political and economic changes in the country and the world. She is well-versed and well-traveled but will she bring all those experiences in her job when she carries the dreams of the lakhs of people who are looking up to her. Does behind her assuming office lies a zeal to bring that change, a change that has been due for too far or it is just the lust for political power? Well, only time can answer that.

But for once with kiddish exuburance and unadulterated optimism, I wish to hope again. I wish to dream of a better Silchar, I wish for a better tomorrow.

John Lennon has perished long ago but for once, I want to imagine...