Ravings of a Nomadic Mind

We recently celebrated our independence day, august 15^th came and went just like every year and a lot of official functions were held a lot of buildings hoisted the tricolor and a lot of little toddlers were very happy as they got lots of sweets to eat and got a holiday from school. The significance of independence for most adult Indians has decreased. The generations that fought the colonial powers to over throw their yoke have long gone into the mists of time and those who saw people dying to secure their freedom are in their twilight of their lives. The current generations were born into a free India and breathed free air. They grew up getting used to having every thing their way. But they also grew up in a socialist environment, in an environment were the government decided what they will wear, what they will eat and what they will see on the television. Don’t get me wrong, Nehru’s conservative policy gave nascent India a lot. Majority of our infrastructure set up was due to that policy but it also limited human choice, but the most harm that policy caused was in the fact general Indian citizens looked at the two national holidays of most significance as a sort of official holiday not something that was to be celebrated by the common man. For people these became just two more days were a person could take a break from work and stay at home.

Freedom for me means a freedom to err, freedom to make mistakes and learn from my errors. In today’s environment of terror and stringent security the values of freedom and most important the right to make mistakes has been the most compromised. Today we cannot sneeze in the vicinity of a sensitive installation without being jumped upon by nervous security who thinks you are a terrorist with a new weapon. Today mothers cannot carry liquids on board aircrafts for their babies without tasting it in front of the security in the airport. The President came to visit our campus and we couldn’t carry our room keys in our pockets. We couldn’t have pens in our pockets and could not shake hands with him. Is this the kind of freedom that our fore fathers thought of us to have, one that we aren’t considered of any significance and one that does not give us the freedom of committing error?, where every human being, every citizen is guilty and looked at as a potential threat till proven innocent through means off a very demeaning body search. The world we live in today is fraught with dangers, it has become intolerant, it is starting to loose its patience. A country that was a welcome haven to any one wanting to make it their home today looks at fear at any gathering of minority communities. Our tolerances to the fallacies of our friends, neighbors and our fellow citizens have gone down. A minor spat on a railway station leads to a burnt railway carriage, and wide scale riots in one of the most progressive states of the country. One statement in favor of an anti-dam movement leads to the banning of a movie starring that actor. In today’s time women cannot roam free in our countries capital, in another metro, girls and boys standing together or just talking to each other are frowned upon. We live in a world where Hitler’s fundamentalism seems like child’s play. Young men and women are ready to go to war for some imagined utopia and kill innocent bystanders for a higher cause. They are ready to blow them selves up just to prove a point and hijack planes and crash them into buildings to make a statement.

Leaders fear to reach out to their followers for fear of being shot at or being blown away. People getting on trains and planes give up prayers for a safe journey. People from certain geographical areas or following a particular faith are strip searched in the name of security. One of the most monitored as well as liberal countries had to face the wrath of fundamentalists when its heavily crowded public transport system was bombed last year.

This might sound as a rhetorical question, but what has our world come too? Why have we become no intolerant to each other? when the world is facing other dangers has highly temperamental weather patterns, the uncontrolled growth of diseases like cancer and HIV AIDS we are creating problems that we all could do without. Intolerance leading to fear which in turn leads to paranoia which leads to mistrust, and violence against fellow human beings, all engineered to further some petty human interests.

We have reached a place and time in our history where the threat of big brother is very real and very omnipresent. We have involuntarily given up civil liberties, the freedom of speech and movement and other such assorted rights that our freedom fighters from Washington, to Jefferson, to Nehru, to Gandhi, to Nelson Mandela all fought very hard and long to secure just so that we can protect the same rights. Is this the world we want to live? What kind off legacy are we going to leave our children? Are we going to teach them that hope and dreams and free enterprise were utopian subjects that they were to high objectives and us humans to lowly to keep them so we took them away from our selves?

I agree the choice is very difficult, keep living life as we are used to and let others keep hurting our children, keep blowing buildings, cars and let anarchy have a shot of taking a place in our lives, or we give up all the freedoms and rights that we hold dear and allow some one of debatable authority to tell us how to live our lives, and dictate history and time. In the first case how long can morality and decency hold out before anarchy and chaos descend on us and ruin all these years of hard work. But the alternative isn’t that pretty too, let the governments take total control of our lives, let security agencies go over our private lives with fine tooth comb with softwares like the fabled “carnivore” from FBI. Evolve into a world where human beings lack free will and free speech. Develop into a species that has two distinct classes one which tells us what to do and the others what to do and when to do, what to eat where to go.

How did we get to such a point in history? And are these the only choices that are available to us. I really hope not, with them life just doesn’t seem worth all that pain and heartaches. There has to be an alternative to these and we have to find them soon or we will end up being something that we dare not contemplate. I leave u with a song from Green day

"Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah
Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I walk alone
I walk a...

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

The world is slowly spiraling out of control and it is up to us to decide what freedoom means to us do we really think that the world is worth living as a free citizen or as Greenday sang we become Jesus of suburbia with no one worth trusting and no one able to trust another human being.

So can you answer me now as what does freedom means to you????