Mallika Sarabhai - Running

Interesting article on Indian Politics...
On the campaign trail, the renowned classical dancer Mallika Sarabhai walks past a foul-smelling trash heap and a gate adorned with coconuts to enter the maze-like slum where ragpickers in this western Indian city live. Little girls welcome her with rice grains mixed in auspicious vermilion paste and garland her with hand-spun cotton threads. She squats on the floor and breaks into a folk song, and women in floral saris and colorful glass bangles clap and sing along." Other candidates wave at you and go away. Our democracy has room only for leaders, not for people like you and me," said Sarabhai, 56, a slim, short-haired woman with kohl-rimmed eyes and a red-glitter bindi, the decorative dot worn on the forehead by many Hindu women. "But I have come here as one of you, as your sister." Sarabhai, a first-time independent candidate, is running for a lower house seat in Parliament in national elections this month from one of India's most high-profile constituencies, a state capital that has been polarized along Hindu-Muslim lines since riots in 2002. As a dancer, she has used performing arts for years to challenge social taboos that limit women's aspirations. In her new political role, she calls herself a "people's candidate" who is fighting to reclaim the idea of an inclusive and secular India.