I want to break free
I hear a call every morning after I get up from my overnight
slumber and I hear the same call every night when I reflect on the day gone by.
It is a call that has increasingly tugged at my conscience especially in the
last few years.
Today I stopped to ponder on why that call keeps echoing in
my mind and why I am increasingly being pulled to answer that call. In the
journey between the time I was born and the time I near retirement, I have
educated myself through books and observing people. I have become more informed
on worldly affairs, on the mysteries of space, and the woes of the displaced.
On human relationships, on conflict in our spaces, on the
intentions of people both the intended and the unintended. I wallow in self
pity at the times gone by, on the lost time where I tried to settle between the
two poles. On assuming a confident role even while walking on assumptions and
presumptions, on my indulgence and overindulgence with people and belief
systems, ideas which at times I try to outgrow.
How I wish I could go back to when as a toddler I didn’t have
to spell out my beliefs, my ideas about people, communities; when I did not
have to encounter trouble for speaking against a particular belief system.
It did not matter which religion I intended to follow, which
community I belonged to, which linguistic preferences I held, which region or
federal state I hailed from. I didn’t give a damn to voices of dissent, to the
ones who swear at each other; go for the jugglery or at each other’s neck. I
need not pay heed to the upright during worship sessions nor did I have to look
away at the bottlenecks of dissent.
I was at peace not having to justify myself, not torn between
two latitudes, not having to side with one at the expense of antagonizing the
other. No nothing, just enjoying life, smiling when I wanted to, crying my
heart out when it suited me most and enjoying the pampered response of my own.
After so many summers things have now changed. I no longer am
a toddler, a baby that was not questioned on its preferences. I today have to
state the purpose of my very existence. It is precisely for this reason that I
fall foul of people and communities and feel restrained as an elephant to
chains.
For they will not let me go unless, I am attuned to their
preferences, unless I hold no opinion on their preferences, until I prove to
them that I am still a baby.
But alas, I have outgrown myself, now I think differently, I
think because I am trying to discover myself. I will not stick to the laid down
rules, I create my own commandments, and I venture to territories that are
marked out of bounds. I am free to think the way I am, I have received enough
formal education to untangle the mangle in my head to chart my own course.
Therefore the clash, for I have to follow the views of the
family, religion, society, region, state, country and the enforcers of the law.
I cannot argue, walk out of line, nor cry foul. My education is not recognized,
my views cannot be fermented, my preferences cannot be changed, and my halleluiahs
will have to sound louder.
I will have to stand up wherever and whenever the national anthem
is played, I will have to abstain from eating certain types of food, and I will
have to praise my community. I will have to support my state, my region and my
friends. I shall have no quarrel with your ideas. If I differ I am lynched down
in a manner that I feel unwanted, an outcast, and a pariah.
How am I free?, To think, to feel free, to pander to my
tastes, to do things the way I want to do, to support views irrespective of the
origin. To ensure justice is emphasized in a manner where each is allowed to
express themselves freely. Will they allow me, I want to break free.
Robin Varghese
