ajit panja of the trinamool congress i drink lots of green coconut water and apply coconut oil before venturing out in the heat even the leading lights cannot escape the grind advani at 77 scoured thousands of kilometres on his rath sonia gandhi and atal behari vajpayee have travelled over 42000 kms and 52000 kms respectively since january this year despite the hazards and hardships a politician cannot afford to complain ncp chief sharad pawar recently had his mouth operated upon but he was out campaigning within a week of being discharged pawars trademark is his politics of personal touch he knows the names of most of his voters in his pocket borough baramati such a style takes its toll on a politicians physical and emotional reserves hard days work politics may be a mugs game but todays electorate also makes its leaders work that much harder a 60s leader like nath pai former socialist mp from rajapur maharashtra could argue that his job was to legislate try telling that to the new centurys voter with democracy percolating to the lowest rungs the peoples representative is forced to change the way he looks at polls ideology may have died with the end of the nehruvian era but issues have not a voter told this paper they come begging for votes we make them crawl what do these votebeggars go through says bjp leader in bihar sushil kumar modi we dont find time for family life campaigning leads to fatigue i have constant headachesdebashis roy a kolkata psychiatrist observes politicians have to conform to a particular pattern of expected behaviour this may lead to conflicts on the domestic front they not only suffer from physical problems but also from psychosomatic ailments irritable bowel syndrome is a regular complaint dr b ramana rao in bangalore elaborates they are prone to hypertension stomach infection and exhaustion sore throat or throat infection is so common as to be called politicians throat democracy matters we tend to look upon the politician as a slithery illbred customer to be fair he goes through the poll grind not because he is an innocent idealist but because he lusts for power and money it is also true that many legislators do precious little for development instead preferring to play people against each other but for how long can this charade continue today governments are routinely ousted for nonperformance we are a maturing democracy less willing to accept sloth granted our democracy is imperfect our neighbourhood politician is not the nicest guy around but without him there would be none of the things we cherish about democracy we may bemoan the venality of politicians but without them that conversation would be reduced to an agonised whisper the cacophony on the streets would be transformed into a screaming silence span style