My very first Vote

Today is a historical day for your humble narrator here.

Today, the day of the first session of polling for the Panchayath elections was the very first day in my life, wherein I used my sovereign rights of voting.

Am I thrilled?

Oh yes, I’m thrilled like nothing else. It was one hell of an experience.

I mean, it genuinely had no element of fiction or fantasy and was rock bottom reality and wasn’t less than anything ordinary. And all these experiences are brought to you by your faithful narrator with an extra smudge of excitement.

(The following is fully based on real events.)

These days when I run out of ideas about spending the whole day, I find a more energy efficient way to burn daytime. I sleep like a bear.

And today was not less than any other day with me waking up nearly on the 11^th hour…

I mean the sun was at its peak and still it found hard to penetrate under my bed sheet.

And finally I woke up, I found myself staring at that fat familiar and smelly form of mine in the mirror, which was in turn staring at me.

I crept in and out of my bathroom; I crept in and out of kitchen and finally settled on the couch with some snacks and the television remote.

The clock struck twelve and every grown up in the house was screaming at me.

Apparently, there shouting had a valid reason. I was included in the voter’s list for this year’s election. Although I appear much younger than I ought to be(thanks to the good looks), I had evolved into a serious sovereign adult. This very fact was immediately followed by the acquisition of a voter slip from the political parties concerned. At first it took a two step process to confirm my name in the list. All that process was drab. Yet it was exciting.

And so I was ready to cast my first vote. The three slips were provided to us as stapled together. I separated my slip from the lot. This act when viewed from third person, seemed like I was handling al the slips, by myself. At least that was my mother thought.

I happily exited the house along with my mum and dad and the 3 of us started towards the polling station. I was nearly invisible en route. I mean my mum and dad had other important things to discuss.

As we approached the polling booth, which turned out to be the Block office, all I could see for half a mile distance were banners and posters of different parties. And strangely every candidate regardless the party, were smiling prosperously at me. I felt as if my vote was going to determine their destiny (A funny thought at that moment, I guess).

Now that we were almost there, Dad made some statement about voter’s slips. He asked my mother whether she had them with her.

And she was pointing her index finger at me. I guess that drew the first blood. I said I had my slip only.

The word 'Pandemonium' refers to a sudden chaos, when things starts messing up real fast. I think, at that moment it was the right word to define my state.

I was torn between the essential duty of a son and the practical application of commonsense. The question of the hour was “If you took your slip out of the bundle, why the hell did you take the other slips?”(Actually the exact wordings were a bit more out of the dictionary and your narrator here is too ashamed to use them...)

“Oh god, what the hell was I thinking?” I asked myself. Mum was an expert in accusing people and dad was the master of accidental advising. And for a minute I was drowning in blames and scolding. In a way I was responsible for this crisis. As we were some 3 miles far from home and my mum was in a hurry to go to her duty after the voting, the question of going back o the house and fetching the rest of the slips was disposed.

But the party posts all along the way to the polling booth provided a copy of the slips to those who failed to bring them. So my head was temporarily saved from the guillotine. But immediately I was assigned the duty to get slips from these party posts for mum and dad.

As I was walking towards one of the party post, the little man inside me was showing me a bird. I got to one post and got two slips done in mum’s and dad’s name.

I rushed to the polling booth, in front of which my Padre and Madre were waiting furiously.

I handed over the slips to mum with sheer confidence. We all made up to the queue. Males and females had different queues. And the Adam’s ribs were dominating the place. I stood behind the meager masculine queue as the humungous feminine procession made it slowly into the voting station.

Every now and then I encountered a familiar face walking out of the voting station. I bothered to put up a smile at each of them.

And after another 15 minutes I found myself in front of the polling officers. There were 3 polling officers in front of me and one near the voting machine.

Also there were a row of volunteers scrutinizing the voter’s list as the names of the voters were being called out. I displayed my slip to the first officer, who called my name loud as the volunteers probed through the list and gave a permissive nod. I signed across my register number and got a small token from the second officer. As I reached the third officer, my excitement was at its peak. He dipped a small stick into the polling ink and smeared a drop over my left index fingernail. All these events were happening in a dramatic slow motion even Amal Neerad could only dream of. (You can go beyond any possible budget to dream, right...)

And here I was before the chief polling officer near the voting machine. He took the token from me and confirmed my voting right. He pressed a key in that machine which somehow reminded me of a big calculator.

I made my way into the voting cabinet which was fortified by a small cardboard partition from the rest of the world. I picked my candidate and pressed the button corresponding to his symbol.

A long shriek of electrical beep came registering my vote.

And that was it. I felt happy. I felt relieved. Mum and dad had left already, registering their votes. And as I exited the polling booth I had this odd sense of accomplishment.

I wanted to show that mark of ink to everyone coming to the booth as an insignia of my accomplishment. Maybe I’m just out of my mind. Maybe it is not a big thing to cast your vote especially when one vote usually never causes big turmoil. So somehow I refrained myself from doing so, considering my surroundings and the rarest probability of disposing me as a nutcase (Though some people know the truth, it’s not fair to advertise it in large scale, right?)

And I descended from the peak of joy and made my way back to home. The scorching heat was not a problem. The thundering noises of announcements were not a problem. All that mattered was this odd sense of being a voter. I reached the town junction and entered a barber shop asking……………………

(Well you all know the rest of the story, right?

Oh god, not that ending. I went for a haircut damn it….)

S4

The station was crowded as usual. It was the hot month of march. And it appeared that the sleepers were getting melted away by the hot sun. There was a bit rush at the ticket counter. Ritha grabbed a ticket and went to a bench at the far corner. She reluctantly tossed her carry bag on the bench and sat there, her face buried in some lifestyle magazine. The Nisamuddeen express was a bit late that day. The girl’s face reflected the certain anger which was partly infused by the train getting late. After an hour, an evident siren from the Far East eased her up a bit.

“I haven’t even completed the internship, and everyone is eager to fix me with some jerk for the rest of my life. Hell!” She muttered to herself as she hurried towards the S4 coupe. It took her another minute to settle down on her seat. It was a window seat. She tried to open the grill, strained a bit and retired unsuccessful. At that instant she felt her heart in her mouth as two cold eyes observed from the opposite end. An ape like man was gazing ferociously upon her. She gulped a truck load of air and tried to concentrate on the less ugly things outside.

The train started moving with a loud screech of engine. As the station started racing backwards. Her mind spurted out with all the things that had been happening in her life in the past 72 hours. A phone call asking her to come home to see some jerk, literally a candidate for her husband, her mailbox showing some idiot’s photo, a bit handsome idiot though, and her reluctant departure from college to see what turned out of this jerk. All these thoughts were scattered by the sight of a man running frantically and hoping onboard. She curiously looked as the man getting out of sight and again coming in, now standing in the corridor next to her seat. The ape like creature was staring at the corridor with those ice cold eyes as if the new comer had done some heinous crime.

“Would you mind giving me that window seat?” the newcomer requested the ape.

Now those ice cold eyes showed a tinge of red.

“Do you want this seat?” Ritha made this comment

“No. Here you are”. The creature growled and stood up and crept into the bed overhead. He disappeared in a second.

Maybe people are not that hideous as they seem.

The new comer sat down opposite to the girl. He was clad in long sleeved cotton clothing with fancy stripes all over them. He looked in his early 30’s. He had a mini beard and lots of packages. He was sweating heavily, possibly due to the frying heat outside. After five minutes he took out some letter pad and started drawing something. Ritha thought not to interfere much into what he was doing now since she had lot of her mind right that moment thinking about getting ticket home.

She took a quick nap for half an hour. She was wakened by a loud hush of a train passing by. The man in front of her was neck deep in his letter pad. She took a glance into her magazine and reluctantly threw it to her side.

At this act the stranger let a glance onto her. It was true that she was quiet disturbed by this act. Yet she remained silenced. To her surprise the new comer broke the ice.

“Madam, would you mind if I borrow that magazine for a minute?”

Words were hesitant to leave her throat.

“Oh. It’s ok.”

“Thanks” with that he started flipping the pages of that magazine.

“It seems you’re really angry with someone”. The stranger shot something real deep into her.

The girl was silent for a short while. Then someone inside her stated saying, trust him. He doesn’t seem a pervert.

“I’m doing my last year internship in fashion designing in Hyderabad. I’ll complete the training within 3 months. After that I need to get into some reputed company and earn something all by myself. But last month all of a sudden mum and dad got this crazy idea of getting me married. They stared sending me photos of some jerks now and then. Now they want me to meet some guy coming to our home. And am here waiting some jerk to tie me up for the rest of my life”. She ended her lecture with sigh.

“So you think it’s bad to marry?”

“Nope. But it’s as bad as bad could be when done too early. After all am asking them to wait 1 year more. Not my whole life”. Now she looked real serious. This was a new generation ‘standing on my own feet’ girl.

“Okay. But it won’t do any harm if you go and take a look at him. Who knows what will turn out”.

“Ah let’s see. But I won’t agree for an engagement or any crap like that now”.

Following this statement was a brief pause. A phone call broke this pause. Ritha took out her phone and attended the call. Most of the words were Yes, I’ll, oh and okay. After she finished her call that same reluctant glance came back to her.

“I think that would be your mother, asking your whereabouts and maybe giving you some obvious advices.”

“Yep it was mum. She thinks that am a still a child. And I don’t know how to handle things”.

“Maybe she is right. I think you are taking this way too seriously. Just go and attend to whatever function they’re planning to and peacefully discuss the scenario. After all they’re your parents. They’ll understand you better than anyone”.

A Chaiwalla passed by. Now this guy offered her a tea. She was withdrawn for the first instant. Yet she accepted the tea. Her skeptic mind made her drink the tea only after he finished half of it and was sitting without any visible setback. The world is a wicked place for a girl to survive, and she had to take care of herself from barbarians all around. One accidental barbarian was sleeping on the bed overhead.

“So what’s your story?’” the girl took this step.

“What do you think?” the stranger shot back.

“Hmm, I think you’re a writer or something. Usually writers wear these kinda long sleeves and out of this world clothing”.

“Oh you are a real fashion geek. But you made a small mistake. I’m not a writer but an artist. Now working as a scenarist for histrionics in Hyderabad. I’m married and my wife’s having our first baby. I just can’t wait to see her”.

That was too much of info at a stretch. The girl felt it a bit exaggerated. Maybe it’s in her nature to judge people that way.

“Do I sound a bit farfetched?” the guy said as if he had read the girl’s mind.

“No no. By the way I was about to ask you about that?” a not too well planned statement. But will do.

“What? About me or my wife?”

Now it was a real head shot. The girl evaded again saying “both”.

Well. It’s a bit of a story. I started off as a small cartoonist in a daily after my college days. There was nothing but renaissance in mind. Those days I used to have a side business to keep my things going smoothly. I worked at a hard ware store fixing old printers and typewriters. After 4 in the evening I would go to the store and take those machines that needs fixation and rides back home with these stuffs stacked behind my cycle”.

Ritha got rid of her reluctant mood now. She was more attentive now.

“I still remember that day when I first saw her. I was on the cycle and she on the foot path. I saw her and could not move my eyes from her. I hit a gutter and a piece of some typewriter fell down and rolled on the road. I stopped at that moment, but couldn’t help myself fetch that stuff before she took it. She took it and went towards me. I was literally confused. What shall I tell her?” a sorry, or maybe a thank you. But instead of them all I muttered something real whacky and at that point of time kind of hazardous”.

Ritha leaned forward so as to pay keen attention.

“I couldn’t take my eyes of you. That’s why I fell down. Sorry to say. I think I’m in love.”

“I didn’t stop with that. I told her that I will possibly get a job the following month and I wanted to marry her

That’s what I said to her. I expected a harsh blow on my nose or a slap noisy enough to make the curious crowd around me to turn me into a heap. But to my surprise nothing happened. Instead she stood there letting out a confused look upon me as if she didn’t understand what I was saying.

After a while she turned back and walked away. I thought she was crying. But wasn’t sure. Another set of days passed. Then without a notice she came to the store and said that she wanted to talk to me. That was the most memorable day in my life, till now of course”. The guy grinned.

Ritha also started smiling as if she understood what he meant.

“That day she said to me that she wasn’t that kind of a girl who fall into love just by seeing a stranger or hearing his sugar coated words. She said that if I truly meant what I said I must come home and ask her father’s permission and marry her as a decent man. I was astonished by her courage to say such things straight to my face. And I was sure that she wasn’t crying the other day. But I asked her only one thing. I asked her did she love me then. And from her silence I knew she did”.

“And then what happened? Did you go to her father?” Ritha was kind of restless now.

“Yes. But that turned out to be a tragedy. Her father was a tough man to conquer. And he didn’t fall for my pleas.”

“And what happened?”

“What else! We got married first and went to her father. She was hesitant to this move. But there was no other way. At first he offended us. Like any other angry daddy, he showed us the door. We were alone for a certain period of time. But now he seems to have loosened up a bit. Since I’ve got a fair income and going to get a fair heir, he seems happy.”

“So, what now?”

“I heard that there will be complication in her delivery. I’ve to reach there soon. She needs me. After all these we’ve been through, we both have become inevitable for each other. None can live without the other. Maybe that’s one of the reason that her father to our relation, though a bit late.”

He sighed. The man’s face loomed with a certain happiness, which can’t be replaced, an affection so deep which cannot be uprooted. The girl felt it and hearing this story she felt happy too.

“When I heard your dilemma upon your life and your opposition towards marriage, it came to me that no matter how hard we try to stay in the track molding our own destinies, somehow or someday we’re derailed and that too for a noble cause. Everything will fall in place in the end. That’s why I strongly feel that you have to go to your home now, and see that guy.”

The train was a bit sluggish now and gradually it came to a halt. Ritha stopped a peddler and bought something to eat. She let out an enquiring glance at the man. But he didn’t see that. He was again busy drawing something. She thought not to disturb him. After the train started moving Ritha broke the silence.

“I think we’ve been travelling for quite a long time now. Aren’t you hungry?”

“Hungry? Well I’ll feel like eating or drinking something only after I see my wife and my baby.

It has been a long journey. I must get some sleep.” He abruptly stopped the conversation and the next second he was curling onto his seat and dozing.

Ritha due to her inborn trait of being suspicious was again irritated by this act. Yet she got over it soon, as she saw his letter pad lying beside him still open. She took it and started flipping pages.

‘Siddharth’s pocket universe’ the first page displayed these words in flashing green and lilac, with an impression of a maple leaf at the bottom.

The second page displayed some girl with her face slightly turned to one side and holding a piece of some machine with small keys. Two thin locks of hair fell through her face and was dwindling in the gusty wind. The third page had three people standing on seashore holding hands, the third one being a small boy. There were pictures of small shops and a railway platform, a Chaiwalla with an unpleasant look, and a girl with magazine in her hand, but looking to some distance with a reluctant sigh. More pictures of a baby and her mother. No wonder this man is so dedicated to his family. His drawings all reflected his voluminous love to his wife and the baby inside her.

At some point of time Ritha was asleep again, now for a bit too long. When she got up the man was not there. The letter pad was lying on his seat and in which he had drawn something very recently. A picture of two human forms flying out of a smashed window with a man waving his hand frantically. The faces were not so clear as if it had been made in hurry or something.

The man became visible at the corridor. He was trying to call someone urgently but was failing every time. After one more minute, he came back and sat on his seat, and tossed the phone onto his side muttering something unclearly.

“What happened?” the girl enquired.

“Uh nothing. I had a bad dream. Maybe the worst of dreams. I just wanted to contact somebody in the hospital, but this damn phone doesn’t show any sign of range. Once got connected and all I heard was that she was transferred to the operation theatre. Oh god, I should have reached there a bit more early.” His voice was coated with anxiety and the certain fear of the worst.

“I just want to get there in time. If I’m there everything would turn out fine. But am stuck here.”

At some point of time the girl felt that he was crying, and she didn’t mind to a word, as such times are best healed by silence. He was becoming restless and at regular intervals was checking his phone for making a call. Then he took out his water bottle. I need some fresh air. With this he stared walking out of the compartment, possibly to the side of the door. Before Ritha could say something, he was out of sight. She now noticed the phone lying there, and it showed a bare minimum range. She took it and stated to follow him. But then, the long gone ape man was getting down. He blocked the exit till he got seated. The girl again froze at his ice cold eyes, not daring enough to get up.

“Hey, it won’t be a big deal if he get his phone later.” She thought as she curled back into her seat like punctured balloon.

A brief pause. The train screeched wild and came to a stop. The girl was pushed forward by the inertia.

“Somebody pulled the chain it seems.” This time words came from the ape.

People in the neighboring coupe started crowding near the door.

“Somebody fell down from the train it seems.”

“Well it usually happens at this region. The track is a bit twisted here”

People around started making futile comments. Ritha was a bit anxious. She didn’t dare to go out. Instead she leaned forward and watched out on to the track at a place where crowd was gathered. She couldn’t make out anything at first sight. But within a few seconds she saw the most heartbreaking scene in her entire life. There was a twisted bottle of water bathed in red lying on the rubble. At a distance was lump of flesh, most probably a hand. She withdraw her eyes the next instant, closed them and tried to say to her mind that this was all a dream. But despite her effort, tears burst off from her eyes. The young man’s phone was ringing now. She heard it a little earlier but didn’t respond as the things going on outside seemed more important.

But now that it was ringing again, she wiped her eyes, cleared her throat and attended the call. The number suggested that it was a trunk call.

“Hello” Ritha found it hard to spell that.

“Hello is this Mr. Siddharth’s phone?” the feminine voice at the other end.

“Yes. But he’s not around.” She didn’t know where those words came from.

“Pease pass this message to Mr. Siddharth as soon as possible. His wife had a bad post partal hemorrhage. Both the baby and the mother didn’t make it. We’re sorry for Mr.Siddharth’s loss…”

At this point Ritha was not crying. All the hustle around her dissolved into darkness. She was now in some void. Her finger went towards the ‘disconnect’ button. There was no need to pass any message. The call was already attended by the right person.

“Somehow or someday we’re derailed, and that too for a noble cause. Everything will fall in place in the end” these words crept into her mind. The voids were now getting filled.

Three people standing on a seashore holding hands.

“A picture drawn out of imagination? I doubt that”.