Human hoardings in Hyd pavements await ‘acche din’ as poll fever rises

Hyderabad: At 9am, a young man, all of 20, stands alongside one of the pavements on the busy Tarnaka road. It’s raining, but Shankar remains unfazed, standing ramrod straight as he tightly holds an 8-feet hoarding. Mounted on the hoarding is the smiling face of Satish Bandapelly, a local BJP leader. Bandapelly’s hands are folded. It’s election season.
Atop the hoarding sits a beaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the centre of a blooming lotus, and below him is a smiling Telangana BJP president Dr K Laxman.
Shankar waits patiently for the clock to strike 1pm. That’s when his job ends and the ‘human hoarding’ can have lunch with the Rs 300 he earned for the four-hour wait in the rain. The ‘Modi mask’ hides his real face and story.
Shankar is not a BJP activist but a motorbike mechanic from Vijayawada who came to Hyderabad in search of livelihood. But currently he works for a caterer.
For the last three days, he has turned himself into a ‘human hoarding’, earning Rs 900. He dreams of starting a workshop and eagerly awaits 'acche din’. He doesn’t know who coined the political slogan nor does he understand its meaning (he doesn’t know Hindi). All he hopes for is a better life.
“The money will take care of some of my essential needs,” says Shankar. Like him, there are at least 50 ‘human hoardings’ standing near bus shelters, public toilets, petrol bunks and other vantage points in Tarnaka.
Their stories are more or less similar. The ‘Modi mask’ hides the suffering of the real faces behind it, all looking for ‘acche din’.
But unlike Shankar, 18-year-old Devraj refuses to remove the ‘Modi mask’ and looks the other way when one insists. He is an undergrad student, studying commerce in a nearby college and fears he will be recognised. It is the lure of quick buck, Devraj agrees.
Both are clueless why they are holding hoardings when they can easily be put up on pavements. They are not aware that hoardings and flexi banners have been banned by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). They don’t care about the ban. Economic conditions drive them to stand for hours, rain or shine.
GHMC cannot ban the ‘human hoardings’ nor can anyone understand the pathos of their bearers. They probably know that ‘acche din’ is a long way ahead, but for now Rs 300 buys them food.