Anju Begam, 40, travelled around 1,600 km from Noida to West Bengal's Cooch Behar to cast her vote in the assembly elections. On April 23, people her village, Chaudhary Hart, lined up outside the polling booth - while she stood on the other side of the road, watching.
Among the voters were her mother, sister-in-law and two sisters. Anju couldn't vote; she and her brother, who share the same address as their 60-year-old mother, were excluded from the final voters' list after the special intensive revision.
"Nahi ho paya, didi (It couldn't be done),'' her disappointed voice pierced through the telephone.
Weeks before that, Anju, her husband and their son had been going back and forth with the local Booth Level Officer, trying to understand why their names were not on the list while some of her relatives' were. "They were giving no clear answers and seeking one paper after another. My son is a postgraduate; he made sure all our papers were in place, but still nothing worked out."
She left Noida early, in the middle of March, more than a month before the actual voting. Her original plan was to go in mid-April after saving her salary; she was also expecting gifts for Eid from her employers.
Her plan was abrupt.
For days before that, she had been trying to secure something that should have been simple. There were online applications, repeated attempts at corrections and even a video call with the officials, but every time they told her it was not enough.
Her family tried too. Her younger son, who has stayed back in the village and is waiting for his class 12 results, made frequent trips to the offices where the voter registration was happening.
Nothing worked.
She planned to go when her family told her that ‘in process’ could mean exclusion. She feared she would be cut off from the system that supports her in her home state. Anju has a small plot of land, and was able to build a small house with the help of many government schemes.
"Har din ek hi cheez chalta hai dimag mein (Ever day the same thing is running through my mind)," she would say in her not-so-perfect Hindi.
Like hundreds of domestic workers across NCR, she made a sudden decision to return to her village weeks before the election in West Bengal, not just to vote but also to secure her name on the list. For these workers, who migrate to bigger cities to earn their living, the worry is not just a single vote - they feel all the benefits from welfare schemes and even subsidised ration will not be available to them.
Several domestic workers I spoke to expressed a similar anxiety, including that their names were missing from the voter list, mismatches and pending applications, even as one phase of the elections in West Bengal is over. Migrant workers, who work in informal jobs and have very limited documentation, find the process intimidating.
Asha Noor, a cook in a household in Gurugram, had a question for me when I called her: "Agar naam nahi ayega to kya hoga didi (What will happen if our names are not on the list)?" I did not know what to tell her. Noor also couldn't register herself despite her repeated attempts to do so, both online and in person.
These workers even spend hard-earned money - often more than their salaries - to return to their villages to vote.
"I was told that I would not be able to work in Gurugram if I don't vote,'' said Baby, who works in the same house as Noor. Baby says she spent around Rs 12,000 to travel to her village in Bhagwatipur, Malda, with her family. She is one of the lucky ones, for she found her name on the list.
For these workers, who live between villages and cities, the risk is not abstract. It is real.
We have seen it happen in Gurugram last July, when the police launched a crackdown and verification drive targeting suspected undocumented immigrants, which led to the detention of a large number of Bengali-speaking migrant workers from West Bengal and Assam, with reports of abuse and widespread panic leading to a worker exodus.
In the absence of a voter card, these threats become real. A Bengali Muslim domestic worker can always be labelled a "Bangladeshi". That’s what most people think they are, even when they employ them. “They speak a different dialect,” some urban Bengalis tell me, not considering that dialects and even language change after every few kilometres in this hugely diverse country.
Anju is offended if anyone calls her 'Bangladeshi', and says her father was one of the few people who had ‘a pacca makkan' in her village - she thinks of that as the ultimate proof of her Indian identity.
Even though she was angry, she was trying to find reason and hold on to hope.
"The village elders have assured us nothing will happen. It’s not just my family, it’s hundreds of others in the village," she told me.
There, however, was a caveat, "Bol rahe hai result sunke jana padega. (Can't come now, have to wait for the results),'' she added.
Anju said she would be on the train back to Noida immediately after the results are declared. In my home, where she is employed as a domestic worker, her absence is hugely felt. Like thousands of apartments across Gurugram, Noida and parts of South Delhi, I am also adjusting to an unexpected shortage of cooks, cleaners and caregivers.
This shortage of domestic workers has shown our huge dependence on underpaid domestic labour. The conversations about the "missing" domestic workers are everywhere' - the society WhatsApp group chats, social media, lifts, even children’s parks. Workers like Anju have been sustaining the urban life and comforts of others, while their own lives remain tied to a fragile bureaucratic system.
Priya Mirza, a resident of Vasant Kunj, Delhi, who teaches political science at Delhi University, says she has been struggling since her two domestic workers left for their villages in early April, and underlines that the crisis has revealed the fragility of the Indian middle class. "This entire crisis reveals that, as a middle class, we are completely useless when it comes to running our own homes, and how dependent we are on cheap migrant labour."
"We have structured our lives, our food, the way our homes are designed, and our expectations of general housekeeping around them. Especially when you think about those curated images of homes on Instagram, this cheap labour should come to your mind,'' she added.
Mirza believes that despite this dependency, people show utter disregard and suspicion toward workers. "We say they charge more, steal, cheat, do all kinds of bad things. We always feel their salaries are more than what they deserve."
I remember Anju complaining many times about not being allowed into the resident lifts and being forced to use only the service lifts or to ask for help in the society. "Sometimes people make exceptions for pets but not us," she would say.
But she persevered, and hopes to do so in this situation as well. Her journey is not just about survival; it’s about helping her children move upwards and have a better life than she has had. She often talks about savings so that her children can study.
Before leaving for her village, she feared that not being a voter might affect her children’s prospects of securing a better future. Her husband has been unable to work since leaving his job as a driver about 10 years back, after he had an accident. She has three children, two of them biological.
Her son, who was among those who could not vote, is her stepson, born to her sister, and the man who is now her husband. When Anju was 15, her sister died in childbirth, and Anju stepped in to raise him.
He works in a factory while preparing for a government job. A few months ago, he came close to clearing a constable’s job in his home state, only to be dropped in the final stages of a medical test over what she described as a fungal infection on his hands.
For her, the lost opportunity still lingers.
Before leaving, she was worried that the expulsion from voting lists would be a hurdle for him in the future. "Sarkari naukri hi sahara hai (Only a government job can provide stability)," she says.
Only time will tell what it will mean for the young man. Will the lack of a voter card affect his eligibility and future prospects? Will this small gap pose a greater risk?
She remembers the voting day with disappointment. "Sab vote kar rahe the (Everyone else was voting)," she said.
She might be angry and upset today, but I know she will come back to her work, and so will many others like her. Urban routines will once again stabilise, and those who have been complaining about labour shortages without paying heed to the real crisis at play will return to their former comforts. But the uncertainty Anju brings back will not be resolved. The absence of a piece of paper can have far greater consequences than just a vote not being cast. She needs that sense of security that she, too, belongs in this country, as has the same rights as every other citizen.
Toufiq Rashid is an independent journalist.