Man of the Year 2009:Aam Aadmi

For no longer being taken for granted .For changing how politics is done .For making his concerns India's concerns .For wanting change and getting it,he's our man.
He was never not in the picture .Which is not the same thing as saying that he was always in the picture.
Like much else that's conciously left half -baked ,the Aam Aadmi --literslly the common man but far from being the middle class tea-from -a-cup sipping ,newspaper -reading Common Man of R.K.Laxman --has been many things for many people.For the politician doubling as a social engineering he was an inverted deity created in his own image .For the rest of us,he was a jumble of people of people who mwere People Not Like Us who existed in photographs of polling booth queus every election ,and fodder for op-ed page writers ,development economists and politicians at rallies all keeen to show that they understand "Real India".
The Aam Aadmi was a concept .That is till 2009.