When Chennaiites tuned in to the US Presidential elections

The venue of the Presidential Election Day event in Chennai, was buzzing with excitement as hundreds of students from schools and colleges in Chennai along with their faculties as well as members of the expat community gathered for the live coverage proceedings. The event, which saw an enthusiastic participation by youngsters included opportunities for the attendees to cast a mock vote and even answer a few trivia based questions on the US electoral system and its history. 

What’s more, there was even a stand-up comedy sketch that had those assembled in splits. However, as the results were being announced, there were also those who were seemingly upset at the manner in which the election panned out. Aardra Rajendran, a Fulbright scholar of Indian origin from the University of Pennsylvania who is here on a research project says, “The results of the election, personally have been very disappointing. It’s sad to see that a candidate who has based his entire campaign around fear and fear mongering has ended up appealing to such a majority of the population. That’s been very sad and painful to see.” However, not everyone in the city shared the same apprehensions. A few of them were optimistic that a businessman was at the helm of the oldest democracy. “I am actually happy that Donald Trump won. It will be interesting to see how a businessman runs a government. At the end of the day, he is a successful businessman and knows how to make money. It will surely impact the growth of the economy,” said Saurab Jain a businessman. 

Trump’s unpredictable nature was a source of anxiety amongst the working professionals in the city. “The biggest problem with Trump is his unpredictable nature. As much as he has been against outsourcing and immigration, he is a businessman at the end of the day. And for a businessman, profits matter the most. He will have to soften his policy against outsourcing when the benefits of cheap labour stare him in his face. But then again, he is Trump - not the most logical of the lot. So, this uncertainty and unpredictability is definitely a cause of concern to me, especially as I work in an IT firm,” said Nizam Md S, Principal Solution Architect. Some even hailed the politician for his fire-brand rhetoric of speaking his mind without any regards for the consequences.  

“Trump’s election is truly shocking considering all the negative press and only one media outlet endorsing him. Most of America Inc., barring a few like Peter Thiel had written him off. But I’d always given one thing to Trump-the courage to speak about issues no politician would’ve dared for fear of being politically correct and losing votes but his lack of solutions in debates made me think he was going to lose. It’s shocking to see working class Americans go against the very fundamentals of what the USA stood for,” said Prashant Balaji, Co-founder, Foodmash. A few in the city felt that it was too early to judge the performance of the future president of the United States. “Donald Trump being elected the president of the United States is being seen as a Doomsday event. But I think it is unfair to write him off without seeing his work. Going by the reactions, I am also amused that the US elections has so much impact on our public, a section of whom don’t vote in local elections,” said Karthik Bhatt a chartered accountant.