ABSTRACT
One afternoon in March, I stopped to collect my customary paan from the little kiosk, a box balanced on four poles, by the highway that ran through my research villages. Not many people were around, most people having retired indoors for some quiet time after lunch. I chatted with Dukhai Dom as he put my paan together deftly — betel leaf, a few betel nuts, a lick of shiny golden gloop and a clove. I knew him well, having learnt a lot about paddy farming from talking to him out in the farmlands that surrounded the village. He worked as ‘labour’, earning about ₹80 a day, on the days that his emaciated body allowed him to work. The rest of the time he earned a few paise from selling cigarettes and paan on the rare occasion that anyone who could actually afford one stopped at his kiosk. I asked him today, as I asked everyone I knew at some point, whether he would vote in the next elections. He looked up quickly, his hands stopping for a second, and asked me ‘Why wouldn’t I? Of course I will!’ I wondered if he knew that it was becoming mandatory to produce a photo identity in order to vote. He smiled and replied he had. I asked if I could see it the next time I was in his home. His smile got broader and conspiratorial. ‘It’s not at home’ he said and handed my paan to me and as I tucked it into my mouth, he rummage among a mass of worn plastic bags, some matchboxes and empty jam bottles behind him. From this assortment he produced a plastic bag that looked stronger than the others, the sort that you would get from one of the bigger shops in a town. From within it he produced a beaten old tin, its latch firmly closed. Inside lay more plastic bags and an envelope, each of which he unwrapped carefully as if handling rods in a nuclear reactor. I waited patiently, wondering if he was looking for cigarettes, a new ingredient for paan or his spectacles. Instead, he produced the unmistakable laminated card, bearing the words ‘Electoral Photo Identity Card’ along with Dukhai’s photograph, his age and father’s name on it.
