My first voting experience

All through my childhood I watched my parents and cousins casting their votes. It was a mystery for me. I have never gone inside any voting booth. I was always curious about this mystery. In 2018, I got my first chance of voting. I didn’t want to lose it at any cost but I was staying in a hostel far from my hometown. I decided to travel to my place to cast my first vote. I along with my friends boarded a passenger train which was the only available train that day. We started early in the morning. With an empty stomach, we boarded the train. The train was full and there wasn’t a single seat available. The journey was 5 hours long. We decided to stand and wait for seats to occupy. As the stations passed by the rush increased and it was very congested for us to even stand. I was feeling suffocation because of the lack of oxygen around me. “Pooja! Please give me some water na!” I asked my roommate. While I was taking a sip from the bottle I don’t even remember what happened to me. I fainted and people around me panicked. I was back to normal in 10 minutes. Someone offered me a seat. After 3 hours of standing in the suffocation, I could look out of the window and inhale some fresh air. Thanks to that kind lady who offered me her seat. For the next two hours she let me adjust in her seat. After all this drama of my life I could finally reach my hometown in a very abnormal way and my father was very much worried about my health. He asked to stay back at home and not go to the voting booth to cast the vote. I was really against that advice. All this struggle is for what? I decided to go to the voting booth and cast the vote. I went there with a lot of excitement but there was nothing interesting about the process of voting in our area. All my struggle was for waste I thought. Then I read a whatsapp status of my friend which read “Voting is a responsibility of a citizen”. This somewhat soothed my pain and I felt like my struggle was not wasted. After the election results, I found out that the candidate I voted for won by one vote difference. Sometimes I feel like giving myself the credit for his victory but everyone except my family would find it a joke.