A decade and half ago, while working in Mumbai, had a colleague known by his initials SNJ. I was reminded of him last weekend when the prestigious Indian Turf Invitation Cup was hosted at the Madras Race Club after 11 years. SNJ was a compulsive punter, not only on horses, but on anything and everything at the Mumbai Satta Bazaar, where he was a regular.
SNJ did not know the difference between a gelding and a filly, or an out-swinger and a yorker. He thought Zinedine Zidane was the lager version of the Zingaro beer, Félix Savón was a James Bond sidekick, Mayawati was Prime Minister, and yet he bet on all of them.
To everyone's astonishment, he used to bring his winnings – a bunch of hundreds, day after day, and bank them. He quipped that the winnings were his ‘pension’ fund, for many astrologers had predicted that he would live till 84, and thus had to build up his nest egg for 25 more years.
You may wonder what SNJ has to do with Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections 2016. Nothing, except he fished for my forecast on the TN Assembly Elections 2001, when I had no idea at all. SNJ grinned and commented that neither does the satta bazaar. He added that on every General Elections in India, and almost every State Assembly Elections, huge amounts of betting take place – except in the case of TN Assembly Elections, where the bookies flatly refuse to take bets or offer poor odds.
Thus predicting the outcome in any election in India, as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned seems to be beyond even the bookies. The main problems are (a) Apprehensive Voters (b) lack of decent (vote share) data base (c) gauging of voter’s mood or intention, which has been termed ‘swing’ (d) gauging the amount of swing or ‘anti-incumbency’ factor.
No one can do anything about the voter’s apprehension or reluctance to divulge his/her intentions. This is the main reason the opinion and exit polls have been so whacky in the past. It is better if we forget about it for the present, gather all such poll data before the election day, and have a good laugh over them.
But what we can do, is try to build up a decent vote share database and try to gauge the mood swing. Let us see if we can manage it over the next few days.
Meanwhile enjoy a translated cartoon from the Tamil daily Dinamalar. For those who aren’t in the know, the ‘boss’ depicts the DMK boss, while the ‘captain’ refers to former actor Vijayakanth of DMDK.
BTW if you wonder about what happened to SNJ, he lost the biggest bet of his life. Instead of living for 25 more years, till 84, he died exactly on the 25th day after his retirement.
Tags: tn assembly
SNJ did not know the difference between a gelding and a filly, or an out-swinger and a yorker. He thought Zinedine Zidane was the lager version of the Zingaro beer, Félix Savón was a James Bond sidekick, Mayawati was Prime Minister, and yet he bet on all of them.
To everyone's astonishment, he used to bring his winnings – a bunch of hundreds, day after day, and bank them. He quipped that the winnings were his ‘pension’ fund, for many astrologers had predicted that he would live till 84, and thus had to build up his nest egg for 25 more years.
You may wonder what SNJ has to do with Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections 2016. Nothing, except he fished for my forecast on the TN Assembly Elections 2001, when I had no idea at all. SNJ grinned and commented that neither does the satta bazaar. He added that on every General Elections in India, and almost every State Assembly Elections, huge amounts of betting take place – except in the case of TN Assembly Elections, where the bookies flatly refuse to take bets or offer poor odds.
Thus predicting the outcome in any election in India, as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned seems to be beyond even the bookies. The main problems are (a) Apprehensive Voters (b) lack of decent (vote share) data base (c) gauging of voter’s mood or intention, which has been termed ‘swing’ (d) gauging the amount of swing or ‘anti-incumbency’ factor.
No one can do anything about the voter’s apprehension or reluctance to divulge his/her intentions. This is the main reason the opinion and exit polls have been so whacky in the past. It is better if we forget about it for the present, gather all such poll data before the election day, and have a good laugh over them.
But what we can do, is try to build up a decent vote share database and try to gauge the mood swing. Let us see if we can manage it over the next few days.
Meanwhile enjoy a translated cartoon from the Tamil daily Dinamalar. For those who aren’t in the know, the ‘boss’ depicts the DMK boss, while the ‘captain’ refers to former actor Vijayakanth of DMDK.
BTW if you wonder about what happened to SNJ, he lost the biggest bet of his life. Instead of living for 25 more years, till 84, he died exactly on the 25th day after his retirement.
Tags: tn assembly
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