I want to break free

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