Voting, changing, and other things

Voting has always been important to me, even though, admittedly, I haven’t always put a lot of thought into the people and parties I was voting for. I don’t think I can blame this on age, although I also feel like no matter who is voted in, they always manage to screw us over, leading to those who voted for them getting criticised and ridiculed.

But this post isn’t about politics or elections or voting (although if you are reading this in Sri Lanka before 4 p.m. on the 14th of November, I do urge you to vote).

Okay, I lied. This is about voting. Kind of.

My uncle, that’s my mother’s brother, lives next door to us. I don’t think they were extremely close growing up, because my mother spent some of her childhood with their father in Panadura while my uncle lived with their mother in Dehiwala. But it is their relationship as adults that I know about, born when my mother was 30 and my uncle 36 (I think).

Anyway, most Sri Lankans aren’t affectionate. Parents don’t tell their children they love them. We aren’t expressive, with hugs and kisses. At least, not in my family. My father’s side, maybe because they are Christians, hug and kiss. My mother’s side worship elders when greeting them and bidding them farewell.

And so, my uncle has never hugged me. He has never shown affection. But he has driven me to the hospital as a kid and even an adult. He has taken me to doctors, constantly called to check on my reports when I had dengue. When I was small, I complained of a tummy ache and I remember him coming over with a shot of brandy (don’t call child services. The brandy worked). When I got an unexpectedly high result at an exam, he too, rushed over with my cousins to congratulate me. This is what love is in Sri Lanka.

When I was still a minor, I would watch my mother call her brother (or receive a call from him) asking what time they should go vote. They would choose an hour in the morning, Amma getting ready and waiting in the veranda. When she received a call from him or saw him take out his vehicle, she would go outside. He would pick her up, and the two of them, along with his wife, would cast their vote and then come back. Later when first my brother, then I, and later the four cousins next door were eligible to vote, some combination of the cousins would join them. My brother and I never missed an election, but some of the cousins did.

We would pile into the white van my uncle has had forever (I never knew why he chose the van for election transport, as opposed to his other vehicle), a van that had a distinct smell (not in a bad way) that took me straight to my childhood. We’d vote and pile back into the van and then he would drop us off before going home. We didn’t vote for the same people and we rarely discussed our choice in the van, but this was what voting was for me. Yes, it was going to the polling centre, having my finger painted, and then casting my vote, but it was also this ritual of going there as a family.

Things have changed since, and the Presidential Election in September was the first election where Amma and I went to the polling centre by ourselves. Unlike previous times, we had been given a centre that was quite a distance away, but we decided to walk. A minute or two of walking and a neighbour, also headed to the same centre, offered us a lift, even dropping us home after voting.

Today, Amma arranged for a known three-wheeler to take us. After voting, we got into the three-wheeler and just as we were leaving, we spotted my uncle’s vehicle (not the van, a pick-up) nearing the polling centre. I wouldn’t have even realised if Amma didn’t point it out, but there we sat, thinking about how times had changed.

I am terrified of change. I hate it when plans change, when people change. I like consistency. Change is terrible for my anxiety. It makes me nervous and even angry. But here was another thing that had changed, another thing we had gotten used to. Another thing we have had to accept.

As we headed home, I thought about how different our lives were to last year, the year before, the year before that, but how, whether we do it kicking and screaming or with quiet resignation, we have to adapt to these changes and fill any voids left by these changes and the people and things we lose as a result of it.

Tomorrow, we may see significant change in the country. Whether these new faces do better, do worse, or are the same as the previous lot is to be seen, but if it’s not the first one, if they don’t do good and if they don’t make life easier to live, I do hope we don’t get accustomed to it. I do hope we demand change and we continue to do so until there is fairness and justice and equality and joy, even.