On 7th of May, I went to the central school along with my family members to vote in the Lok Sabha elections for the first time ever. The voting booth happens to be about 10-15 minutes away from our apartment. I was eagerly looking forward to this day, not because I felt hopeful about being able to change our current regimen, but because of the possibility of people starting to look at me as an actual adult instead of endlessly infantilizing me. I thought it would make them realize that I, in fact, am old enough to participate in the decision-making process of this country.

I was allowed to directly go inside the polling room without having to stand in the line, since I’m physically disabled, and was accompanied by my parents who are both senior citizens. However, the presiding officer told us that they can not allow me to vote because we had not taken my PAN card, Aadhar card or any other legal documents for identity proof in lieu of my voter card, which itself has not arrived even though months have passed since we have applied for it. We were told that the paper tickets featuring our voter ID numbers from the election commission should be enough and that I would be allowed to vote even before the voter card arrives, because my name is already registered in the voter list.

I started feeling sensorially overwhelmed upon being told that I would not be allowed to vote.  Even a tiny piece of thread sticking out of my skirt, tickling my leg felt overwhelming to me and I just wanted to sit down somewhere and take the thread out. So when the polling officers told my parents to go ahead cast their own votes, I asked the police officer if I could just sit down on one of the empty chairs in the room, but the officer didn’t even try to listen to what I was trying to say and forcefully grabbed my arm and told me to wait for my parents. And since I’ve always hated being held like that, my temper shot up and I angrily took my arm out of her hand and stomped to the empty chairs and sat down to take the thread out and calm myself down.

My mother walked towards me and asked if I had a pictures of any kind of photo-identity document on me, which they could use as identity proof. I offered to help search for it on her phone, but when I finally did find something, the presiding officer said that we can not use it because people aren’t even allowed to bring phones inside the polling room, another rule that no one bothered to tell us before because no one actually checked for phones anyway.

After both of my parents were done casting their votes, they told us to leave the room immediately, because the line was getting longer and we had to go sit in the waiting area since my sisters were still in the line. Refusing to give up, my mom decided to go find a Xerox shop to get the legal documents printed out from her phone, asking me to wait there with my dad.

While we were waiting, a man in an army uniform approached us and asked my dad if I was his daughter and if I could even read and write as if I was not sitting right next to my dad. Frustrated with being misgendered and disrespected like that, I tried to tell that man that I could do much more than just reading and writing, but the man just shrugged me off because he couldn’t understand what I was saying, or more like he didn’t even try to.

After a while, my mother came back to the waiting area with a worn-out look because all the shops were closed in the whole neighbourhood owing to the elections. Right when I was about to give up on my hopes completely, my dad got up and said that he would just go home and bring my aadhar card, while my sisters were still in the queue to vote.

As we were waiting for my dad to return, I vented to my mom about how they ought to explain the rules more carefully and my mom told me about how some of the people who were done casting their votes said that they were not even asked to show any type of identity proof, unlike me, which left me feeling insecure about my appearance and how much trouble my whole existence was causing to my parents. As I was just falling down the downward spiral, I started crying without even realising it. My mom noticed this and told me that I shouldn’t be crying about it because people were staring at which, I just snapped and said, “Let them think whatever they want.”

Oh no! You feel uncomfortable seeing a disabled person crying in a public place?? Think about what exactly pushed me to that point! Why should I care about the society when it doesn’t care about me?

Fortunately, I calmed down a bit after having a brief meltdown and got to cast my vote after my dad brought my aadhar card from home. Although I can undoubtedly say that I would not be able to forget about this day anytime soon, because of the emotional turmoil I had experienced on this day, I also learnt to completely disregard my anxieties regarding how I’m perceived in public.

As much as I am tired of being discriminated against for just being different from most people, I certainly am proud of myself for being able to toughen up and keep growing as a person.