Notching up 200 kilometres a day, she and her colleagues trundled the bylanes and boondocks of Bharat in search of the elusive Indian voter, and an insight into his mind. Lurching into villages without electricity in UP, to tribal settlements in Jharkand, to Baripada in Orissa and Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu they beamed out a daily show called the Election Express, that spoke one on one with the locals and tried to understand the issues that determined their lives.

Part travelogue, part election special, part candid confessions of an inveterate TV camera-time junkie, this book is a delightfully frank account of one woman’s understanding of why the country voted as it did; and how obvious it is, once out of the larger cities that development is the ultimate vote-getter.