I voted for the first time this year at the age of thirty-one. I stood in line with all the adult members of my extended family. We talked about politics as we inched towards the voting booth and remarked from time to time about how, despite the slow pace of our progress, we had moved quite a bit in a short time.  Standing in line, I thought about the meaning of our votes and of its role in politics. The significance of the vote seems vaster and more complex than this day and this act. Much more than the summation of the individual choices made by a certain number of the nation’s adult citizens. I thought about how, for as long as I remember, we have been told that what happens in our country is a deviation from some universal norm. But today, I felt certain that we have as much to say, in as fundamental a way as anyone else, about what democracy means (or can mean), and what it means to be responsible towards the community that is one’s country, and beyond.

I was too young to vote when I left Nepal at the age of sixteen and since then I have borne distant witness to the changes in this country, and longed to be a part of them. Now that I am back, with the word permanently tagged to my return with a kind of abandon and affirmation that I believe I could never feel anywhere else, I find that the distance has not been bridged and that it cannot be. If anything, it is inevitable, and that is a good thing.

I did not completely identify with the act in which I was participating. It felt a little bit like a dream. In the first place, my reasons and justifications for casting a vote and making a choice from among those offered appeared vague. But whereas some years ago I might have demanded certitude from myself, I am okay with the ambivalence I felt because I believe it is necessary and even positive. It marks the space that enables me to recognize the limitations of this act and of the field we call national politics, and the need to articulate a much more expansive and thoughtful vision of what needs doing on our part as members of the community that is this country, beyond the act of voting.

There is so much we need to think about and think through, questions of identity, culture, politics and their interface with other aspects of our lives – religion, the relationship between different generations, our history and perhaps most importantly our future. We need to direct more effort and energy towards seriously thinking about the kind of future we want for this country. Having said that, I felt quite strongly the importance of voting this year because it was accompanied by the realisation that politics, whether national or international, however narrowly or broadly defined, includes me, despite any reservations I might have about it. At a time of so many questions about our identity and future, participation and affirmation are as important as dissent, and the search for alternatives.