Lost in the fluster

Last night. Like the approximate 20,000 people gathered, I feel fortunate to hear Michelle Obama speak. Social media, facebook pages, texts and twitter feeds, all buzz today about the talk -- how wonderful, how inspiring, how authentic, how witty, how real… and I don’t need to repeat any of it.

The whole time there, I wish my daughter were with me. That she hear every word. Oddly enough, the seat next to mine is empty. I look at it and wish more so.

Tickets to this event have been on my mind, but due to low energy levels, I don’t quite get around to it. The day of the event, I wake up and decide I have to try. I find two tickets and call a friend who I know wants to go. As deals like these go, I meet the person in a Starbucks and transfer the tickets. Score! We are on.

A few hours before the show, I bustle about, drop my kid to her activity, fix dinner, try to squeeze in a nap… I am moving, thinking, organizing… I don’t slow down, I don’t check email (not that the two are related in any way).

After the show, as I’m heading to bed, I see an email from the person who sold me the tickets. The email says that he had one more ticket as another person in their group is not able to make it. My eyes widen. That seat next to mine. The one that could have been my daughter’s! I see another email from him, sent an hour and a half before the show…

If you want it, I'll transfer it to you for free. I just want someone to use the ticket at this point! Lol

I shake my head in disbelief. That seat was truly meant to be hers. I would have been more than happy to pay for it. I want to kick myself. I wonder if my bustling and hurrying and scrambling got in the way?

Nooooo… I shake my head some more and decide not to beat myself over it. My kid is thirteen. She will have ample opportunities to hear remarkable and inspiring women (and men) speak. I fervidly hope she will seek out such opportunities.

Yet, I wonder, if given that I operate on less energy, do I scramble more, in a bid to get things done in a similar manner to how, a younger, healthier version of me would have? Does that cause a certain stress, that no longer allows me to be in touch with the bigger picture of things?

Sometimes, it feels like the Universe is trying to align itself, in our interest. In times such as these, do I get in the way? In the way of beautiful synchronicities that are trying to happen? How then do we stay open and relaxed and in a position to receive completely?

Interestingly, I am reminded of Michelle Obama’s anecdote of how she first met Barrack Obama. There are many remarkable elements in her talk. This one seems relevant.
He is reporting to her office for his first day of internship. He is late (from figuring out trains) and he is wet. She is not impressed. However, she narrates how he is not in the least flustered – despite arriving late, and wet, on his first day. He apologizes for being late, mentions he didn’t carry an umbrella… but maintains his persona and calm and is completely at ease and completely centered and himself, focusing on what he needs to do and why he is there.  

Greatness, clearly, is not arrived at in a hurry, or through scrambling and stressing, and losing focus of the bigger picture.  But we always knew that.  

So, although I may not be vying for greatness of any kind, remaining unflustered even when there is something totally fluster-worthy and being able to see the bigger picture may be something worth moving towards.

Not to say that I would have certainly checked my email if I weren’t as winded, but I know for sure my two hours before the show would have been more relaxed, and most likely, everything I needed to do, would have been done. Hmmm…

Expressions of love…

In my youth, I write plenty of poetry. Not sure about the general caliber of the poems, but I sometimes write verses for friends going through a rough patch, in times of success, departures, weddings... It is my way of helping, or celebrating, or simply expressing… It seems like a normal thing to do …

I remember a letter I once write to a friend after his father’s demise. It is the hardest letter I ever write as a teenager. It may be the one I ever spend the most amount of time on, wondering how to articulate something I cannot comprehend, yet trying to offer support. He tells me that he read it several times. It makes me believe in the power of words – to heal, to make things better, even when they don’t really do anything.

In journalism school, we pass notes in class in rhyme, sometimes continuing the verse. The end result is both hilarious and brilliant. I am, after all, surrounded by a gifted bunch of writers and it seems like a normal thing to do.  

A few decades ago, when my husband and I are dating, I write him a poem (I may have written him a few – but this one I remember well). If you look at the first letter of the first word of every line (vertically), it aligns to say: I love you and his name. I know… I know… cheesy and mushy – but again 20-year-olds do things like that. Despite the cheesy format, the actual poem is decent (ahem…so I think…).

I give it to him in the car and I suppose he puts it in the glove box. He leaves for graduate school in the US, soon after. About a year later, he and his mom pick me up in the same car. His mom nonchalantly pulls out the paper from the glove box – (I recognize the handmade paper with alarm) and with equal nonchalance says, “I found this in the car – would you like to keep it”.

Beetroot faced, I grab it from her. Neither she nor my husband (boyfriend at the time – yeah, I married him despite this!) seem to be particularly reacting. I, on the other hand, am mortified. I wonder how many people have read it. I cringe some more. If I can’t jump out of the window, I want the car seat to swallow me and to never emerge again from the foam. Neither happens. I feign nonchalance (I think). I also never write a poem for him after that day.  

Sometimes I write notes for my girl and put them in her lunch box. Some are sweet, some are funny, some are pretty darn neat (ahem… in my opinion). She comes homes, empties out her lunch box, throws the notes – straight into the trash. The first time I see her do that, my eyes widen. Whaaat…. My exquisite little note… I sigh…

After all, she reads my expression of love, receives it, is done with it and is now ready to move on to other things…In due fairness, I remember the notes and cards this little hallmark elf makes for us, when little – I keep a few, many end in the recycle bin.

I am now beginning to understand the value of doing something simply because we value it, or simply for us. After all, we may often not assign the same value to another person’s gestures when we are at the receiving end.

I know how much joy and connection I feel when I write to someone. And that is my joy. Simple. Pure. In the moment. Writing is just one example. We all have our own expressions. Some may be as fancy as a painting, while others may be as mundane as doing the dishes.  

Yes. Love is a strange thing. Maybe it doesn’t always come full circle. Maybe it is not always made of full circles. Maybe it is a half-rainbow-like circle that we send to one another. And just like a rainbow, it may be strong and bright or at times, wispy and light.

And if we look closely, there are more love-filled rainbows around us than we notice. They come from family and friends and pets and even strangers, and we give them out – knowingly, and sometimes when we don’t realize.

I rarely write letters anymore and I never write poems. That chapter is done, and I have turned a page. But I did start putting one together, after writing the above.

Fifteen minutes and a cup of tea later, I see I have no intention of completing it. So will post it even if it’s unfinished or unpolished… just to make sure my half rainbow goes out… Happy Valentine’s day!

What is love?

It’s the wine, chocolates and cheese
It’s sometimes doing the dishes

That tender feeling that rushes

When gripped by a baby’s fingers

That deep stirring of empathy

In seeing our parents aging

It’s the space we hold for another

Be it a friend or sometimes stranger

A glance to steady another

A gentle squeeze on the shoulder

Yet to receive it, requires
An openness of the heart
Even when there’s more than we know
Engulfing us all around…

 

Maybe someday, I will sit down, polish it and complete it… till then…

Jetlag 2019

3:15 a.m. I stare at the ceiling. Jetlag *&%*@#$*, I grimace and turn the other side. I open my eyes again and I know it’s not just the disturbed sleep pattern leaving me restless. That inexplicable hollow feeling inside doesn’t come from lack of sleep. It comes from leaving a life and people, continents behind. It comes from being soaked in life and love and then surgically removing yourself from it.

3:30 a.m. I think of my friend narrating how her dog recently tore her favorite cushions. As we share chai, brought back from India, she recounts how during a family gathering, the dog is surrounded by lots of people, receiving love and attention all day. He is then left by himself later and possibly confused on being alone, tears apart the poor cushions.   

Am I just this labradoodle, I wonder?

4:00 a.m. I stare at the ceiling some more, and think of India as a bowl – a large, noisy, chaotic, colorful bowl, filled with an overload of sounds and smells and flavors. The only way to survive it, is to give in. To become part of the color and chaos. To develop the lightheartedness, and sense of humor, to get through it and to enjoy it. To even lose yourself a little to the collective whole. You don’t choose to be in the bowl. You are already in the bowl, and in many bowls even. Your job is to figure out how to navigate the bowl.

On the other hand, in the West, each one is a bit of an island. Islands do come together and form beautiful patches of land. But it is a conscious effort. These patches of land can be harmonious for they are filled with intention, and purpose and definite direction and knowledge of where they are headed. Proactivity and individualistic decisions are guiding forces that steer these islands towards creating larger patches of land, that they may choose.

And if you don’t make the effort, you will always remain an island.

I suppose, both have advantages and disadvantages and ultimately, people are wired differently, and some may prefer bowls, with ready-made environments, while some may prefer islands, with their vast expanse of openness.

4:30 a.m I think I should go downstairs and write. Hmm… seems pointless. It feels like I say similar things over and over, in the same format even, each time I am jetlagged.

I try to remember what I have written earlier. Memory being vague, a few ideas emerge… Of collective vs. individualistic societies and communities in the East vs. the West.

Of being a round peg, that is now square. Which no longer completely fits in the round hole, but is still a little too round to fit in the square hole.

Of maybe the purpose of jetlag is to process everything we experienced in another time zone and make sense of it in the current.  

5:00 a.m. I decide to go downstairs and cook lunch. My mother often wakes up very early, and instead of trying to go back to sleep, she will finish cooking for the day. This last trip, I warn her each night when I stay with her, “No pressure cookers at 4:30 a.m., no blenders at 5 p.m…” Hmm… I had better be quiet in my cooking.

5:45 a.m. Lunch is ready. Jetlag may not be such a bad thing after all… I make myself a cup of tea and reach out for bakarwadi. As I put the bakarwadi in my mouth, I am flooded once again with musings of India.

I know that as I pack lunches and walk the dog and go about my routine, these musings will fade away like fog in sunlight. Maybe that is the whole point of jetlag… that you lay awake in the quiet of the night, in the stillness of your home, and process the thoughts and emotions involved in shifting continents, from moving from your place of origin to a new place you now call home, of noticing round pegs in square holes…

Maybe I will feel the same each time I travel. Maybe I will make better sense of it, after each trip. Maybe, I will learn to better process it emotionally, with better acceptance. Maybe I will learn to treat it as a vacation and stop wondering why returning from India, never feels like returning from a vacation.

Or maybe I won’t. And maybe I will write the same things, in the same format over and over again...

 

 

I am sorry….

Letter to my daughter, to all those in her school and to her entire generation, who think of this this as a normal event,

I am sorry…  

I am sorry that you have been in lockdown at school for over three hours now.

I am sorry I cannot tell you when this will end and when you will get home.

I am sorry this is happening to you and that I can do nothing about it.

I am sorry that you may be scared, confused, just plain hungry or really really need to pee.

I am sorry that some of you have been huddled under desks for hours.

I am sorry that even if I may be circling your school, that even if I am only yards away from you, I cannot tell you it’s going to be okay.

I am sorry that even if I do nothing else all day and am in loops of groups texts, I can do nothing to help.

I am sorry that even if I continue to gather information, it feels pointless, and all I want to do is to hug you tight, even when your teenage self tries to squirm out of it.

I am sorry that each of you was patted down by policemen with riffles.

I am sorry that a middle schooler has the capacity to wreak such havoc.

I am sorry we do not have a supportive social fabric to support our troubled teens in need.

I am sorry that unfettered gun ownership allows a young kid to make threats and that we have to heed those threats as they may be genuine.

I am sorry that access to guns is so easy.

I am sorry our country and lawmakers are not yet able to do anything about this.

I am sorry you had to call me to say you are okay and that they are 'giving you oranges and stuff'. I am sorry you had to act like it was no big deal.

I am sorry you feel like you have to be all grown-up and that you have to calmly explain things to me. I am sorry you feel like you need to be the adult in our relationship today. 

I am sorry that you will probably come home, see my anxious face, shrug your shoulders and say you were fine. I am sorry you will tough it out and let it slide like it is a routine thing.

I am sorry I cannot tell you that this will never happen to you again.

I am sorry that even if I know it is my job as a parent to keep you safe, I can do nothing about this.

I am sorry if my sorrys amount to nothing and my hope for your generation is that you will bring in the change and that you will never have to write such a letter to your children.

 

The life not lived…the ice cream not eaten… and the great, but mysterious plans for the grated Cassava…

September puts me in a reflective mood. I have another birthday, a new school year begins, summer ends, the air gets crisp... And much as I love to watch leaves turn colors, time feels like a slippery, elusive thing – like sand slipping through my fingers at a pace I cannot keep up with; grains that I want to hold on to, but seemingly out of my control… All I can do is brace myself and watch it slip away…

I have a birthday yesterday. I notice my mind travelling to similar thoughts. Yeah… whatever… I tell myself. Several times. It totally snaps the melancholy and also the poetry. Yeah… whatever… Maturity? I wonder. Or “just-not-giving-a-sh** anymore”? Hmmm… Yeah… whatever…

I have a good day. A bike ride, lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant I’ve been wanting to go to forever. Tiny place (James Beard nominated), and they make only two pho or soups daily. My family would have been otherwise reluctant, I milk the birthday card. I take an afternoon nap. My dog curls up on the sofa with me. And of course, I find a wine with my name and age (!!!). Life is good. There is no time for wistfulness.

 

This morning, I wake up tired and sore. I have been attempting to savor every last drop of summer and my body seems to notice – unhappily, begrudgingly. “Live each day like it is your last”, they say. But, they fail to mention anything about the next day when you get up sore and want to sleep for three days straight.

Yeah… whatever… I open the freezer to get frozen berries for a smoothie and notice how limp and watery the bag is. My eyes widen and continue to widen as they take note of watery puddles in the freezer. I open the fridge side. Nothing is as cold as it should be. The refrigerator ghosts have changed the temperatures and they won’t let me change them back. In the fight of ghosts versus human, this human has sadly, no victory to report. The freezer temperature stays at 41 and the fridge temperature at 67.

Everything my yeah…whatevers were trying to dismiss, stands before me in a metaphorical mess. Parts of my life not lived, that could have been delicious, if savored, stare back. Three tubs of delicious ice cream, look shriveled and unhappy, sabudana wada packet that (I swear) looks at me accusingly… shelves and shelves of food, headed straight for the garbage bags.

The puppy, of course, is going crazy. She licks a drop of dripped ice cream, realizes it’s the best thing ever and bounces around herself looking for more.

No, no… don’t put that in the bag… I’ll clean it up for you! It won’t be any trouble at all.
Smells of all sorts descend on her and she’s tries to help clean it up, and sulks when I won’t let her.

See…you should have let me pull that salami straight out of the grocery bag…It’s all going to waste!!

I continue to find things I have not seen in ages and chuck them in trash bags. My dog noses my knee, noses the bag, and makes tortured Chewbacca sounds as she watches me throw the wild caught salmon. This deluge of smells is torture.
No! I can’t watch this happen anymore! That’s the grilled chicken from last night – WOMAN…are you crazy???

I tell her I am just as sad as she is.

I stare at a small, flat packet tucked beneath a bunch of things, “grated cassava”. I stare at it some more. I have no idea when I bought it, what I had planned for it, or even how it tastes. I don’t think I have ever used it in my cooking. It sounds exotic and delicious, even if I am clueless why it is in my freezer.

Resigning to the fact that some things will always remain mystery, I continue with the cleaning. 

Apart, from the mess and the work it involves, I realize all my yeah…whatevers… can no longer shield me from the truth. That of impermanence and time fleeting, and uncertainty and not knowing when something will be gone, and all the wonderful things we set aside for later that simply languish or are forgotten…

********

No, I still don’t know what is wrong with my fridge. But I now understand this, from its contents.

Yes, that freakin’ sand is going to slip through our fingers. So, if it represents ice cream, eat it up, don’t save it for later. Even if it means all three tubs. Call me, if you need help.

Throw away that tube of anchovy paste, the minute you or your kid, grimace at its taste or smell. For it’s taking space of a yummy, happy something. Same goes with the vegan mayo.

Ask yourself if you need to have three cartons of milk going – two hemp (one vanilla, one regular) and a regular whole milk. Same goes with all the different teriyaki sauces. Shoyu, tamari, and soy sauce are all same – one will suffice. Last known, you were not considering opening an Asian restaurant.

If you’re never going to use that delicious looking, organic tahini, find someone who will. Better yet, get them to invite you over, when they make something delicious with that delicious looking tahini.

No. Buying a giant bag of chia seeds does not assure good health. I understand you have to actually consume them.

Same goes for the flax meal, acai juice, umeboshi plums… They do not sit tight in the middle shelf and impart good health, each time you open the refrigerator.

Don’t go the Indian grocery (or regular grocery) store hungry. Those packets of frozen masala dosa that you drooled over and thought how easy, will return home with you, only to sit cozily next to their identical twin boxes.  

If your freezer looks really full, it probably means it is. You will never find that wild caught salmon – and your dog’s unhappy whimpers and eyes, watching you throw it away, will haunt you forever.  

And finally, don’t wait too long to make that delicious cassava something. You may not remember what it was going to be. Make that absolutely delicious cassava something right away, while you’re still excited about it (and may have gone to some specialty store to find it) and savor every last, delicious morsel of it.

Now that part, you may actually remember.

 

A man, a bike and a mission

You can lose everything, but as long as you don’t lose yourself, you’re okay.

~ Dnyaneshwar Yewatkar  (translated/paraphrased)

We hear similar pithy sayings. We agree with similar pithy sayings. We decide to live by similar pithy sayings. And then, we move on to other things.

I wonder how many of us would have the strength to actually live this saying, in a foreign country, when all of our belongings are stolen (other than passport, visa and diaries kept on person). When all we have is a bicycle, no money, no idea how to leave the country of Laos* and reach the next destination, no idea where the next meal will come from and when, and a myriad other concerns.

Or in South Korea when officials shoo him away when he tries to spend the night on a park bench. He finds a hotel, does have money to pay for boarding, but in the middle of the night is asked to leave because he is colored.

Or a village in Kerala, India, when he is chased by dogs in the middle of the night and is beaten up by some villagers and left to die by a river.

Or in Thailand*, where dogs chase and bite him till his leg bleeds and is swollen. He goes to a hospital and is asked for travel insurance. He tells them he has none and is informed of the amount he will have to pay. When he tells them, he does not have the money, they tell him they are unable to help him.

(Not to malign any nations, these incidents could happen most anywhere.)

No. Dnyaneshwar Yewatkar does not lose himself. Instead, he keeps his faith in himself and others intact. Diehard optimism even in the face of adversity, he refuses to lose himself or his faith in human connection or the good in the world and that in the hearts of others.

These and other stories unfold last night and a bunch of us are fortunate and humbled to share his experiences and attitude at a friend’s place. 27 year old, Dnyaneshwar Yewatkar is from Maharashtra, India, and has been bicycling around the world since 2016 to spread the message of peace and friendship to mark Mahatma Gandi’s 150^th birth anniversary. He plans on returning to India in 2020 after having covered most of the world on his bike.

No. Dnyaneshwar Yewatkar does not lose himself or his faith in good. He sees it and believes in it and knows that good is always around the corner. His belief is strong and he encounters the good. He talks about the Muslims in Kashmir, who light lamps in Hindu temples, or the time he spends with Naxalites. “They were very kind to me”, he says with a smile. “People are all the same everywhere,” he continues. Agreed my friend. I know I have said and felt the same, but clearly don’t have his kind of extent of experience to back it up with.

The story I can’t get out of my head is when he comes face to face with a tiger in remote Myanmar one evening. He recounts how he stands there trembling, clutching his bike handles. The tiger is about 100 meters away* and stares at him. Dnyaneshwar stares back, but in a pool of sweat. After about 15 minutes, the tiger walks away into the bushes. Dnyaneshwar doesn’t budge and can see the tiger’s eyes glistening in the bushes. He waits there a while and when he can no longer see the tiger’s eyes, he gets on his bike, pedals hard and nonstop for six hours*, without turning back to look, for even an instance.

In this nonstop frenzy, he takes the wrong road and reaches a small and primitive tribal village in the middle of the forest. There is no electricity, or any means of communicating. The folks in the tribe surround and check him out. Clearly, they have never seen an outsider, who looks like him. He talks fondly of the few days he spends with them, of how they finally figure out he does not touch meat and bring him root vegetables. He joins their tribe for those few days, goes hunting with them, and tribe refuses to let him leave.  

Last night, someone asks him if he encounters more good, or more bad. Unhesitant, he replies, good. It is easily palpable that everyone in the room is aware of the bad, the scary, the pain, and the difficulties he encounters, and is humbled by the optimism and tenacity, and the sheer faith he has to find the good in every situation.

And he does. In Thailand, after the dog-bite and swollen leg, and denied medical care, he gets back on his bike and rides on. He visits a school and is talking to the children about his experiences, expedition and mission, when he passes out. The school officials rush him to the hospital, where he receives medical care. One of the teachers then takes him home and gives him a place to stay till he is stronger. He is vegetarian and vegetarianism is a hard thing for folks in that village to fathom. His face crinkles up with joy and gratitude when he recounts how he saw this teacher look up Indian and vegetarian food recipes on Youtube.

Good thankfully, does seem to be around the corner, for when he is beaten up and left to die in Kerala, some fishermen find him, take him home and care for him till he is back on his feet.

My page, or rather two pages are up and this is only a scattering of stories from last night. His experiences are fascinating and many, and I am sure will turn into a book, and possibly a movie. I can’t wait to read that book.

I remember pondering on the following quote some time back:

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”

~ David W. Orr

Dynaneshwar may have never read this quote, but seems to be living it. 

*I did not take notes yesterday, and am operating on memory, so some details or places may be mixed up. I couldn’t wait to share the heart of the story, even if the journalist in me wanted to call him and fact check J Guess my heart won, over the head.

Dnyaneshwar will be in town till Sunday and I will be stopping by to give a cash donation to his cause this evening (didn’t have enough cash on me last night), if anyone else is interested.    


 

What is freedom? What does it mean to you?

Today is India’s 72^nd Independence Day. Many years ago, or rather, exactly 22 years ago, I was working on a newspaper story to commemorate India’s 50^th Independence Day. It contained interviews of people as they remembered that very day, 50 years before, in 1947. The mood, the festivities, their emotions, the pulse of the nation; what they did, how they felt, how they celebrated.

These were mostly folks in their late 60s, 70s and older, who had been youngsters on the eve of India’s independence. They talked about the excitement and optimism they felt and the belief they held that India would be unstoppable, once she was free.

They spoke of the freedom they had sought, for so long, as a nation, a movement that had mobilized them and the generation before them and the sweet success they felt and even perhaps a sense of disbelief, as one lady mentioned, that day in August 1947.

That story unfortunately never got written, for something more important came up, but every Independence Day, I am reminded of the interviews and the stories from August 1947, scribbled in my notebook.

There is small chance that I may ever recover that notebook, but the energy and the sentiment of that time remains with me, through the accounts I heard. One narrated of how they rode the Mumbai local trains all night long. All the local trains were full. Everybody was on the streets and celebrating. They didn’t quite know what to do and spent the night simply wandering about the city in groups and it sounded like everybody was doing the same. Some remembered the first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous speech, “tryst with destiny”.  

I talked to folks who as college students had been part of the freedom movement and even some subterfuge activities. My own aunt told me how she once crushed a piece of paper with some vital information and stuffed it in her mouth and was a subterfuge carrier. Others told me of how their entire college experience was on the backdrop of the freedom movement. I could feel the zeal and vitality in their voices. A strong sense of purpose and justice they sought and the freedom they yearned to move forward.

My father who was only a young lad, remembers how his mother, who seems to have been an activist, mobilized the women in the neighborhood and made a certain sweet, bundi ladoo, to be distributed to children in the city school. The government had given them a certain amount of money, which would be insufficient had they purchased sweets from a store. As a result, his childhood home was thronged with women rolling out laddoos, and the floors were completely covered with delicious golden balls. There were laddoos everywhere and it is his fond and evidently sweet memory. 

His childhood seems filled with memories that speak to the pulse of the moment and the movement. Of his sisters and mother who wore sarees they spun from the charkha, a loom made popular by Mahatma Gandhi, in the wake of the Quit India movement and swadeshi (self-reliance) movement, where the push was to not use products imported from the British. As a result, people spun and wore their own cloth. He remembers rows of charkha in their home and women spinning and also the opportunity he once had to gift Gandhiji, a shawl they had spun on the charkha.

My personal favorite is when he went on a satyagraha, just like Gandhiji would – sat on a mat, declared strike, refusing to eat or drink – an in-house civil disobedience movement, in protest when his mother refused to take in a stray cat or dog that he wanted.

Stories like these speak to the mood of the nation, how entwined even young children were with the movement. How cohesive the whole nation seemed to be. There seemed no room for apathy, everybody had one goal, one unified goal – that of freedom.

In our daily life, living in “free” nations, I wonder what freedom now means to us. Does it mean different things for different people? Every independence day, when I think of my unwritten story, the one thing that strikes me is the passion these seniors seemed to have for freedom, the sparkle in their eyes, the energy with which they spoke about freedom.

The collaboration, the unity, the common goal, the passion it invoked, for justice and human rights; the passion they spoke with, of generations coming together for a common goal, a common good, that of equality and justice and the deep sense of purpose it seemed to have ignited in them.

Sure there were factions and there were the cynics, and the traitors, but the cohesive movement had a strength and a life of its own. 

In our daily life, living in “free” nations, even if we don’t have an obvious goal to move towards, I wonder if apathy has leaked in. In being more focused on ourselves, if we may have lost a larger perspective on our world. For there remain, many other freedoms worth fighting even if we are “free”.

And there are those personal freedoms worth striving for. I know for sure, there are things I would love to free myself from, biases, and beliefs that do not good, the need to conform to certain things for no good reason, fears that I live with for no apparent reason.

In our daily life, living in “free” nations, there are still shackles we live in and create for ourselves – at the personal and larger level. May we learn to mobilize the courage and vitality that lies in the sentiments of the scribbles in my old notebook somewhere – to free ourselves from those too.