Freedom to Be

I am grateful for the freedom that I have been blessed with. And I am also thankful for all the brave men and women who toiled and struggled to ensure that we were born free. This day to me is a commemoration of the sacrifices made by a few for the benefit of the many today.

I saw a tweet from someone today, stating “A true Indian would not be the one waving Indian flags on 15^th August, but the one picking up the ones, people dumped, on 16^th August.”

Quite an intriguing thought. I was wondering whether this sense of being an Indian comes to us only on 15^th August and 26^th January. What about rest of the 363 days of the year?  Having said that, I contemplate what freedom implies to us today as Indians overall and to me as an Indian Woman particularly.

For me - an Indian who was born into a liberated nation, freedom is the capacity to have faith in whatever I wish to do. It is the liberty to have an outlook and not be deemed unpatriotic or autocratic or fraudulent only because I do not post patriotic picture on my Facebook wall on 15^th August or wave the Indian flag from my rooftop, screaming slogans on patriotism. It is also the right and liberty to speak, put in writing, blog, tweet my views devoid of threats by tyrannical leaders who in fact feel that their freedom is someway superior to mine. So by this explanation, I’m definitely not free.

As a woman from India, I want for my fellow women, back home - the freedom I cherish here in USA, miles across from my native soil. I wish to see them liberated from the trepidations of having to select ‘suitably wrapped’ clothing while having to walk down streets after dark, or going through the fear of never getting back home safe after the
 “8 pm” limit set by the law enforcement authorities.

As a woman from India, I want for others the equal freedom that I had while selecting who I wished to marry and live with. A woman in our “self-absorbed, conformist and jam-packed of jungle rules”, which we so dotingly refer to as a “society”, is like a gizmo. Gizmo of mass enjoyment, of countrywide teasing, of being killed even before being born, of driving the country on top by raising the already unrestrained population.

For this reason while I was born into a liberated nation, I can’t hep but question, if we truly are free?

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Photo Courtesy : Ram Reddy ( www.shuttermonks.com)