I am one of those interior décor freaks , I love decorated homes and love decorating my own home . But every time I amble around my home, there is one thing that never ceases to amaze me – how did the goldfish in the jar on the dinning table spend three years of its life there and going to spend all its life there?


Since ages man had tried to break out of clutches and shackles while the other times he had been badly in need to of just them and nothing else. Man started off as an animal , free and inexorable but when he was obliged or rather felt the need to cook ( read burn) his food ,then a lot of other things came with it. But has this need for order made some cultures ,like the ones in the middle east, rigid ? Or is it in the other extremity – Man is badly in need of Law. That is the thought that strikes an average mind when it sees the lawlessness around it. Freedom means different things to different people ; to different cultures; and to different societies. If history has to be believed Vincent Vangof was at the mercy of LSD to create all those ethereal creations. For such souls world melts; trees are uprooted and people vanish and appear in their canvas of art. Such souls find it freeing.


To a child next door freedom means to play around much longer after the sun has long set. Pablo Picasso found angles very freeing for himself in his famous cubism but graphologists always believed that angles in any thing hand written is a sign of stubbornness, of self-opinionated minds. So, angles- those sharp edges can also give one a creative outlet that’s so freeing. The artist on stage is sure to find the thundering applause freeing, the wild almost raucous mad love for his work. But as long as social freedom is seen in the right perspective , so far so good. In fact , it’s essential.


But is all the increasing talk of liberty for mankind sometimes seems hallow. With all the techies around the world and with myriad airlines zooming the skies , they have not become as light as a feather. A bird flipping its wings in the sky will always remain more free than the souls in the aircraft who have nowhere to go but breath their last lest something goes wrong in the flight. With the submarine all heavy and loaded , they will always remain less agile , elegant and less dexterous than the fish flapping its wings to the unending waves of the sea.


But then, freedom is when one has the freedom of choice. With this kind of healthy freedom man can fly too , metaphorically. A student bhargava says , “ freedom is free thinking. It is freedom to love and be loved. And it certainly doesn’t mean being a frog in the well”. Talking of love , true love , says Bhagvad Gita is when one finds love that does try to possess , hurt or oppress. Says Priya , an IT professional , “ My grandma always ends up talking about my wedding . One day I decided to stand up for myself. I told her nothing is good or bad about it but marriage is a choice. I don’t have to follow a time table. I can breath, walk, smile and cry without it. I told her that after all it’s not oxygen.”, and she adds , “ if you really want to make own choices in life , you will face questions . You need to stand by your viewpoint and express it cordially.” I think of asking about open marriages since we were talking about freedom and decide to dig the matrimony thing. A lady, Adriana, 22, flares up, “ I believe marriage is a commitment. My man dies if he cheats me.” Mary Karuna, a communication student in Osmania Univerty sums it for us, “ Freedom is to be the person you want to be. People are always asking you to be a good daughter or a good wife, freedom is when you don’t have to oblige such demands just because you are expected to. This is what freedom means to me as a woman. “ By the looks of it India seems emancipated but nay, these women are just a handful of strong ones from the metropolis of the land, that’s it.


There an other side to our country .In India, records have it that more than 4,000 women are killed by their in-laws on grounds of dowry demand and so many more become victims of violence or abuse. More than a million Asian girls are forced in prostitution to accommodate men who fear falling prey to AIDS. These girls, in effect, are thrown at the monsters. So, is the talk of freedom for these women a surreal dream , in the present conditions.

By

Lakshmi Vishwanathan