Protest comes in all shapes and sizes

No, I was not part of the protest held on Sept 24. I was in Washington DC for the Annual Book Festival conducted by the Library of the Congress. It was inaugurated by the President's wife and first lady Laura Bush at the National Mall.

At the Franconia Springfield metro station, we had to wait for over an hour to catch our train into DC. This has never happened before. Reason - track maintenance. Thats rubbish. The Metro authority knew very well that 24th is going to be heavy rush day because of the Book Festival and the protest. But they still went ahead and shut down one section of the tracks. I suspect they did that in order to prevent more protestors from getting into the city !! (conspiracy theory, huh !!)

The station was full from one end of the platform to the other. People from all shades covered the entire real estate. Saw someone with hair shaped like the Legionary Helmets of the Roman army and another with a bullet strip (dont know what its exactly called) tied around his waiste. hmm! protestors I thought.

The train finally left the station and moved through stations in its way collecting more and more people before it arrived at the Smithsonian Station. Wow! it was jam packed.

And there we saw, hordes and hordes of banners. Impeach Bush, one screamed. Another had his picture with "Liar" watermarked across it. There was one asking him to concentrate on Katrina victims rather than the war.

People going to the Book Festivel and to the protest rally, all alighted at the same metro station. Interestingly there were signs directing each group and also volunteers who were announcing and directing - " Book Festivel this way, protest this way" !!

Each group orderly went their way.

I was amazed to see protestors in all shapes, sizes and age. There were the frail 70+ to the naughty 10 yr olds. Firm to the freaky looking ones, working people to college students.

There were banners plastered with eye catching slogans and pictures. There were whole families, father mother and kids, wearing similar tee shirts with slogans. There were little kids with protest stickers on their backs and tattoos on their faces.

People had used their talents every where. We saw intersting props being carried around by people. They should have really put in effort to create such interesting ones !!

The protest was not just made up of the war-opposing people. There were people who supported the administration too who wanted to see and hear what the rally's message was. There were republicans present too who did not support the administration on this one point. They called themselves - Reformed Republicans.

There was this interesing incident when we were boarding the train back home. As usual it was packed to the seams. We managed to squeeze in. There was this one lady with a banner standing at the doorway of the train looking for space where there was none. She asks the guy standing next to me - "Is there space ?" and he looks at her banner, smiles and says -"Sure, we have enough space for a Reformed Republican !!", grabs her arm and pulls her right in, with the train doors closing.

I do not know how many people in the country share the complaint that the protestors lodged that day. Nor am I sure if this would change the policy of the administration. I also dont know if the protestors had a point at all.

But one thing, its really great to see people from all walks of life taking time off to come to the capital, from far away places, to express their opinion to their elected representatives.

It really does not matter who you are or what your profession is. When it comes to expressing an opinion, you are a citizen.