Bound by democratic duty

A fractured back didn't deter her from going to her polling booth to vote.

She has voted in 16 general elections. She wasn’t willing to miss voting for the 17th time. So what if she is 140 km away from her polling booth and can barely get out of bed? She was determined to go. My mother had to move to Bengaluru recently to be closer to me, her second-born daughter, after she had a fall in our ancestral home.

She was a graduate and a career woman in the 1950s. Fiercely independent in her thoughts and a staunch, unabashed Nehruvian, she cast her first vote in the 1957 general elections and hasn’t missed a single one since, either state or national.

Every bit the proud Indian, she has strong views on everything in life, whether it is the rituals to be followed for Varamahalakshmi vrata, who should have a stronger say over the Cauvery water, or her constitutional rights. She is, of course, better read and educated than all three of us, her children, and our spouses put together.

She is deeply hurt that China has taken our land and distraught at what’s happening in Manipur.

She had confessed once to me that while staying in a senior community is not a bad idea, she can’t tolerate all the bhajans that are promised on the brochures of these homes. “I can’t keep talking about how bad my knee hurts or how high my sugar has shot up ad nauseum. I would rather die alone.”

But I digress. Ever since the general elections were announced earlier this year, I could see Amma getting restless and reminiscent. She spoke of all the elections she had voted in, getting a voter ID, and everything until the last assembly election, when Congress won and Siddaramaiah became the CM. She was very hurt that the opposition was reduced to what it was in the 2019 general elections. “How can democracy survive without a credible opposition?”

I couldn’t ignore the hints any more. I voted in my polling booth 500 metres from my home in Bangalore South and booked an SUV to take her to her polling booth in Kannegowdana Koppalu in Mysuru. Notwithstanding the pain in her back because of a compression fracture, the lady braved the 6-hour round trip in the scorching heat and dust to fulfil her democratic duty. The fault was entirely ours that we didn’t change her address in the electoral roll.

The police and the poll officers in the near-deserted polling booth in the government primary school in KG Koppal made voting a breeze.

As a true Mysurean, my mother, Shantha Sethurao, 88, has all the affection for the Mysuru Maharajah. She credits the Mysuru Royal family for making Karnataka a model state. Nevertheless, knowing her, her belief in the Democratic Republic trumps everything else, even the bygone benevolence of the Royals in Mysuru.