The problem with idioms is that they become cliché — dead metaphors used to fill space, the import of their original message long forgotten. This is more than apparent during election season, in the few days and hours between when the final vote is cast and the results finally declared. The proverbial chickens are counted before the eggs have hatched, and everyone — from the anchors and analysts on TV news to the politicians and viewers — seems to forget that “there’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip”. Why all this fulmination over figures that — for better or worse — will cease to matter very soon? Perhaps in the answer to that question, in the mystery of why exit polls obsess so many, there is an insight into the contemporary consumer of “content”.
On Thursday afternoon, a familiar scene unfolded across television channels. The exit poll results for elections to the Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Telangana assemblies were “teased” for hours. This involves, more or less, a recap of the stakes and, more importantly, boasts about how in surveys past the predictive power of said journalist/analyst bordered on prophecy. Then, the “results” are in and discussions on government formation, post-poll alliances, etc, begin in such earnest, with such a sense of finality, that the viewer may well wonder if the actual election even matters. That is, until you switch channels and find that winners and losers have switched places.
It is easy to judge the exit poll spectacle, riven as it is with hyperbole. Ironically, elections — a mechanism for the peaceful transfer of power — are described as “battles” and “wars”. Yet, Indians love politics as much as cricket. And in the era of reels and posts, where news competes with nonsense, a little drama in the run-up to the actual result is understandable. Besides, an exit poll can be entertainment, a dress rehearsal for the final day, without the stakes. And like in any good show, the performers have to believe in the script as they invite audiences to suspend disbelief.
