The Restriction called Freedom

We all use the term freedom a lot of times in our daily lives. The final exam and then the freedom. The end of project and then the freedom. But, to what extent do we stand correct? Or in a more lucid manner, are we really free?

It’s been 70 years in an Independent Nation. A time so long that most of us weren’t even born then. A time so long, that the people who were lucky enough to see it don’t even remember it well. All they say is that we have won freedom. But, then the rules for governance were written using the the same rules that were set by the one’s who abolished us of freedom. And in the mean time when they have matured enough to change their own rules while our’s is still the one that inflicts injustice. So, Is the nation really free?

It’s been 5 years, since the first major rape case in India came out into the limelight. The effects were so brutal that the victim couldn’t even survive. Revolts, riots and protests were happening all over the nation. But the culprit walked freely for weeks. The case was so sensitive that it opened eyes of many. Something that tells that someone’s pleasure can be be paid by someone else’s life. But, that wasn’t the lesson that everyone had learnt and indeed the cases still increase in numbers everyday. This doesn’t even limit upto women but also to children, yes children meaning girls and boys. So, are people really free?

A person’s sexuality is the tag of it’s normalcy. Or that is what it is believed in our country. A mere law is the restraint for living the life in one’s desired way. Even though, one can secretly fulfil their wishes without being caught by the legislature’s eye. Some privacy is granted to everyone in a society. But even then, there is a need for an openness and a need for a breaking the closet doors. And in the end, they end up struggling for equal rights that they practically have but not legally. So are they actually free?

A person fed up with his/her marriage calls for a divorce. After everything, when he/she finally gets the divorce one has to pay alimony to the other. Or if not even that and they carry on with their individual lives, they still find some emptiness and still struggle to find the one thing that they saw in their first marriage. Because that is what made them feel happy and alive. They stumble back to the very first step that made them go through the sufferings and there stands a great chance that history may even repeat itself. In the end they crave for some love that they lost in thier lives and start a search for it. So in the end did they get their freedom?

Whatever we try to do in our life, we still remain in one cycle. If we get rid of one event, we get thrown back into another. And even when we get out of the cycle, there will be some rule, some law, something that will put the asterisk mark saying conditions apply.

         We have a freedom of speech, but our speech must be within the norms set by the society.

         We have a freedom to choose, but the options are always set by someone else.

         We say that the sky’s the limit, but then we also differentiate between the sky and the space.

The moment we step out to enjoy our freedom, there is some boundary that we shouldn’t exceed. And that leaves us like the Schrodinger’s cat. That we are free and not free at the same time and to obtain the reality of the two we need to look into the restrictions that enclose us. And eventually, Freedom is just a restriction whose scope has been widened.