During a Saturday morning, I was on a call with my best friend. We would catch up every weekend or so and meet up annually. As I was telling her how my day went, she remarked on how lucky I was to find a suitable home where I could stay alone. She lived with her parents and her younger sister. I knew what she meant. Of course, being able to live in a cheap but comfortable apartment far away from home with no one to judge me, in a big city did feel like the dream. But it was different. She called it “freedom” and I called it “loneliness”. Having no one to wake me up when the sun rises each day and no one to say goodbye to when the moon starts to shine, I would pass my days with silence, juggling work and little holes of entertainment all year long.
That one tiny conversation really made me wonder about the true meaning of freedom. It really made me wonder how we perceive freedom.
In the constitution, freedom is called a “human right”. A right every person deserves, no matter race, creed, gender, colour or religion. It isn’t a privilege, nor a gift to be presented with. We are entitled to it. All living beings are entitled to it, yet we go around caging animals and locking them behind bars. We go around mistreating them and control where they can step, and where they can walk. We prison them and command them to show us tricks and entertain us.
If I help a person in need, they call me humane. If I help an animal, they tell me that I’m breaking the law.
On August 15th every year, we celebrate independence. We celebrate freedom. But we aren’t free. Women aren’t able to walk around without being stared at. The poor are discriminated on the basis of their clothes, but not personality. We kill one another and talk about humanity. Some People torture our loved ones and talk about respect. We murder our women and talk about dignity.
This isn’t freedom. This is hypocrisy. This isn’t prosperity. This is a disparity.
We hang up flags, and talk about charity We sing the national anthem and make up idealities. Some people ignore the tragedy, We ignore the reality. We ignore the responsibility and gasp, when occurs the fatality. We blame it on a local party and turn it into a cheap parody.
Are we truly free when our brothers and sisters are out there demanding Equal Salary? Equal opportunity? Decent humanity?
Gandhiji died with a broken heart.
This isn’t true freedom, this is hell from afar. So let us not disrespect our forefathers’ ideals, Let us stand united. Let us start showing love, and stand proud in the land our ancestors fighted.
When, even the poor start smiling. That is when we will have achieved true freedom
When we fight temptation and stop hurting. That is when we will have achieved true freedom.
