As we have seen, the Indian general elections can be exciting with moments of nail-biting tension and drama thrown in. But what happens when the poll dance is over? You put partisan differences aside and get down to business, says Varun Mukerji, director at Reach, a Pune-based organisation that supports NGOs and company foundations (CSR) in designing and implementing their programmes. By that, he means the collective business of knowing our members of parliament (MP) better.

Mukerji, 30, is showing the way. Along with colleagues Anuja Pitre and Anirudh Prasadh, he has designed a game titled Mantri Cards to ensure that our interest in the political landscape does not end with the elections, but is enhanced by it. Fashioned on the lines of the good old WWF Trump Cards, the cards contain publicly available information on the MPs — their age, educational qualifications, assets, and even their criminal cases. "We felt the time was ripe to increase civic engagement, because the 17th Lok Sabha has only just begun. And for the next 5 years, we are going to be led by these 542 MPs," he says. "It's important that we know who they are."