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Whose Victory Is It, Anyway?
IT TAKES TOO many days for the election results to come out on TV. I think I will go crazy from all the waiting. Why can’t they add up the votes sooner, now that everything is supposed to be double-quick with the Internet and all? Why are they so slow? People are always telling kids to hurry up. Now it seems as if the grown-up world has slowed to a crawl.
A whole week goes by the way snails are supposed to. Although really, I have never seen a snail. They don’t just wander around in the city. I get grumpy thinking of all the things I have not seen and do not know. Including, now, those election results.
On Wednesday, at dinner time, I pull the clothes off the washing line. I wash my hands and put the plates out for dinner. Then I help Umma to put out rice and egg curry and crunchy fried yams and grated carrots with mustard seeds on top.
By the time we finish eating, it is dark. The breezes blow in from the faraway beach over the city rooftops.
Reeni comes over. I go up to the terrace with her and pick up the flowers that have blown off the raintree. Their puffy pink petals are turning limp. We roll them between our fingers and let the pollen streak our hands.
“Reeni! Yasmin!” Shoba Aunty is calling up from their balcony. “Come down. Come listen.”
We hurry down, startling the lizards that are busy eating insects around the terrace lights.
On TV they are announcing the election results.
“Oh, look, look, look!” Reeni shrieks and points.
By a margin of 3,879 votes — that is a lot of votes, isn’t it? — KARATE SAMUEL HAS WON! It’s all over the TV news and the radio news. Within minutes, it’s also all over the people-shouting-to-each-other news.
We run up the stairs telling everyone. We run down the stairs telling everyone all over again in case they didn’t hear it the first time.
“He won!” we tell Chinna Abdul Sahib.
“Perfect,” he says.
“He won!” we tell Shoba Aunty.
“We did it,” she says. Arvind Uncle beams. They are not fighting anymore, it’s clear.
“He won,” we tell the newly-marrieds. They gaze happily at each other.
“He won,” we tell the istri lady, who is closing up shop for the day.
“Yes,” says the istri lady, closing the wooden doors of her ironing booth and clicking the lock. “But will he remember our Book-ayya?”
Her words sting. I want him to remember. I want it so badly that my stomach hurts.
What was the use of all that work? What if this Karate Samuel actor person who is now mayor forgets all about the one thing that everyone wants him to do? The one person we all want him to help?
Is the istri lady right? Will Mayor Karate Samuel forget about Book Uncle? Her stinging words buzz around in my mind like angry bees.
“You worry too much,” says Reeni.
“I know,” I say sadly. “I can’t help it.”
I go back to 3A. The TV is off and my parents are quiet. Everything feels empty because everything is over. I go to my room and I look at all the books on my shelf. And I think, What can I do now?
I pick up a book. It is the karate book that Book Uncle gave me. I should give it to Anil. He would like it. I open it. On the very first page, it says, A true leader seeks to help those who are doing good.
Doing good. That’s Book Uncle. A true leader. Isn’t that what Karate Samuel wants to be?
I run to the kitchen and I pick up the phone that now has its ringtone back. I call Anil.
“Anil,” I say, “you know everything about Karate Samuel, right?”
“Almost,” says Anil. “Why?”
“Do you think he wants to be a true leader?”
“Of course he does,” says Anil.
“In that case,” I say, “we need to remind him. Are you with me, Anil?”
“Hiya!” Anil yells into the phone. Then he says, “Sorry, Yasmin. I did not mean to hurt your ears. It was just a karate way of saying, Yes, I’m with you.”
Karate Samuel did not win this election, I tell myself. Whose victory is it, anyway?
Ours, that’s whose. We won this election. Now we have to make sure he does not forget Book Uncle.