A quick check through the telephone directory turned up the interesting fact that the politician was staying in Palace Orchards – one of Bangalore’s poshest upmarket residential enclaves which could not be called a ‘village’ by any stretch of the imagination, but that was neither here nor there. I had been exhorted to go and work in the villages and I was going to do just that.

Maybe mine was an unusually plastic and malleable mind, but I was already convinced that with my smooth – talking city slickness and savvy, I was cornering the fruits of development, while letting my victimized rural cousins wallow in poverty, ignorance and misery and I was weighed down with a sense of guilt.

I would galvanize the indolent rural youth and make them the vanguard of a revolutionary agrarian army that would overwhelm the parasitic cities and establish ‘Gram Swaraj’ of Mahatma Gandhi’s dreams.

For my heart – stopping bucolic odyssey (or misadventure, if you prefer), I chose a village in the interior, some 100 miles from Bangalore. I wanted the ‘locale’ for my pulsating rural action to be as far away as possible from Bangalore and its 97 (or is it 98?) cinema halls and sleazy joints featuring bar girls and all – night floor shows and cabaret dances. Tut, tut.

I drew up an elaborate programme of selfless action in the village. I would galvanize the indolent rural youth and make them the vanguard of a revolutionary agrarian army that would overwhelm the parasitic cities and establish ‘Gram Swaraj’ of Mahatma Gandhi’s dreams. I would sweep cow dung off the cobbled and dusty streets and build bio – gas units and usher in an era of appropriate and sustainable rural technology. I would empower the innocent village women and form micro – credit societies and Self Help Groups and break the stranglehold of usurious money - lenders and ‘kulaks’. These and other revolutionary thoughts jostled in my mind as the rickety bus made its way to the village.

As I alighted, a fierce mid – day sun was beating overhead and hunger was gnawing at my vitals and I would have gladly given my eye teeth for a plate of hamburgers and a foaming mug of chilled drought beer. So my wicked city ways were still with me after all, hankering after rich food and alcoholic beverages to wash it down with! I told myself sternly that I was in the village to share the trials and tribulations of my oppressed rural brothers and sisters and that I should consider myself lucky if I got some thin, watery rice gruel and millet balls to eat.

But something odd struck me right away. The village was bereft of young people, whose blood, sweat and tears were being exploited as the smooth – talking politician had managed to convince me, by the city to grow obscenely fat.

Puzzled, I accosted an old man who was sitting on the steps of the Panchayat office chewing ‘paan’ and thoughtfully appraising his gnarled finger – nails.

“Pop” I earnestly asked, “Where ARE the young men and women of the village?” The old man looked up in surprise and said “Don’t you know? They have ALL gone away to Bangalore.”

S. Raghunath