For masses, it's WhatsApp in elections, national or regional

Experience matters, but not as much if it is infected with the "I-know-all" syndrome.

My recent trip to Punjab for stories around the state's election campaign came after the seismic rise of Donald Trump in the United States.

You may find the juxtaposition of voting in a small region of a developing country in Asia and the most powerful office of the world's most powerful nation awkward.

If you do, my blog has precisely reached the audience it is meant for.

We now know what sells in American markets can sell very well - and is selling very well - in Indian and elsewhere.

Localised pricing, advertising and packaging is what it takes to universalise merchandise.

It, therefore, shows how a common human psychology binds the human race across hemispheres.

So, if humans can turn to certain products en masse, irrespective of their diverse nationalities, they can be very well drawn towards a new political school of thought wherever they live.

Technology, especially the internet, has long been credited with transforming the world into an interdependent global village.

Post Trump's presidency, I sensed messaging services have now in fact ruralised the globe.

Ordinary people - both in the developed and the developing world - have municipal and household-level expectations from their national leaders.

What really turn these communities into a unified command on new-age media platforms are not diplomacy, fiscal deficit, their nations' weaponry, jingoism and so forth.

They are, rather, connected by their kitchen budgets, utility bills, employment, health, the future of their children, the red tape and the condition of streets right outside their homes and workplace.

So, both the ascension of Trump in the world's most-advanced democracy and the apparent surge of a baby Aam Aadmi Party in a province of a country as far as India have come on the back of a strong, common resurgence.

And not many consumers and producers of English journalism could absorb this subtle but powerful wave.

I didn't, therefore, travel to Punjab with my baggage of experience in mainstream national and international media.

I went there light, my gut being my sole guide.

I tried not to cloud my judgment with psephology.

And I then was able to see a new Punjab - or rather a new world.

This world of ordinary folk is least hooked to English newspapers, to fancy Twitter or to talking heads on national airwaves.

More than even Facebook, it's WhatsApp that I found was bringing Majha, Doaba, Malwa and the Punjabi diaspora together.

In Amritsar's vibrant, old bazaars, instant messaging is now a driver of businesses.

NRI men click images of dazzling, embroidered traditional dresses, WhatsApp them to their wives thousands of miles away and make quick purchases as soon as the women send back their okays.

In this busy Punjab - and world - people hardly read up newspaper editorials or watch sit-down interviews back to back.

Still, in this mobile Punjab - and the world - every time is primetime.

So, if for example, Navjot Singh Sidhu had shot his mouth off in a rally somewhere remote before noon, crisp clips of his faux pas would sweep across the state like wildfire by lunch.

In this new Punjab - and the world - people know what they have suffered.

So, if any messenger of change is able to motivate - organically and honestly - his or her campaign in sharp video and audio clips, he or she has then probably won half the battle.

The rest half is hard work on the ground, which has no substitute in this new, ruralised globe.