Gone were the days of passionate freedom fighters boldly marching into a rain of lathis and bullets, screaming their lungs off chanting ‘Inquilab Zindabad’. The black and white, the good versus bad, the fight for freedom had given way to the gray, muddled world of democratic politics. India was preparing for their first general elections, ready to perform their civic duty of voting, at long last. But there was nothing civic about democracy. A fact that some 172 million eligible voters of free India would soon find out: a whopping eighty-five per cent of who couldn’t read or write. And so, the first order of business for canvassers like Abhimanyu was to educate the naïve population about what was at stake and what needed to be done, complex arguments pertaining to national affairs were broken down into simple jargon and pictorial representations of party symbols. VOTE CONGRESS, a stray cow’s back read, with an image of two bullocks with a plough.

Yoked oxen, imprinted on a skinny cow’s jutted rib cage, standing next to a four-wheeled hand drawn cart carrying a blaring electric megaphone that amplified a sentry’s gruff barking orders of ‘Congress ko mat do’. All the while Abhimanyu waved to the weather-beaten onlookers while glancing down his velvet shoes that had collected several days’ worth of desert slime and cow dung. If the Ranakpour prince was questioning his life choices, he certainly wasn’t showing it.

As with other princely states, Ranakpour was a collection of Thikanas – small districts overseen by Thakurs who were distant relatives of the royal family. Abhimanyu’s job was to connect with the Thakurs and capitalize on their intimate knowledge of the constituency to identify the local thought leaders and convince them to galvanize the crowds to vote for Uday Singh. The local sarpanch, the street-side baniyas, leaders of the ethnic Bhil community, everyone with connections was approached, educated and coaxed to pledge their support. Knocking on doors, waiting at the porticos as the heavy metal lock chains creaked and clanked against the brightly painted blue and red wooden gates, took some getting used to for the prince. Far from Ranakpour city, in the outer fringes of his erstwhile kingdom, where no one recognized the royal scion, Abhimanyu had to shout out his introduction to peering eyes from up above the piazzas before being let in. The irony wasn’t lost on him. With his one good eye, Abhimanyu was seeing the real Ranakpour for the first time in his life.

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‘Maharaj has all but ruined his shoes walking our humble streets,’ remarked the thakur of the southern town of Dongra as Abhimanyu wound down at his haveli after a gruelling day. The sole of his left shoe had wilted under the weight of the sticky mud and had completely come off. In order to be able to walk, Abhimanyu had tied a kerchief around the front of the shoe to prevent the sole from dragging on the ground.