Can you see through our National Flag?

We are done and dusted with the idea of freedom. We are. I know that. From opinion pieces to research papers, most of us have read everything there was. We have analysed the texts, the words, the lines and even the spaces between them and I have come to realise is that freedom has no one definition but if there is anything about it that most of us will agree with- It's the fact that freedom is about choices.

What that makes us free is to form an opinion, being able to speak and act as we want to without being tried for it. But the moment you impose it, you traverse across the thin line of freedom and become its enemy.

It is about making choices as far as you are not curbing other person's freedom to make choices.

You are curbing my freedom by forcibly trying to enter my personal space or restricting my movement by shouting, yelling or terrorising me when I drive back home from work.

You are curbing my freedom if you are imposing your decisions on me in the name of tradition.

You are curbing my freedom if you are imposing your language, your religion and your opinions on me.

Most women in our country, the tribals, the minority in this sense, are not free. The Chandigarh stalking case, the lynching cases across the country and the fact that we are still selling skin whitening cream saying that it will help us succeed in life speak volumes about where we lag.

Our national flag stands for strength, peace, and prosperity. It stands for our freedom which we won with our cultural, psychological and physical strength. Cultural because if anything 200 years of British rule could do to our forefathers and foremothers was - to make us adopt their ways, not eradicate theirs. Psychological because British official accounts' narrate how mentally disturbed it made them when they oppressed the oppressed and physical because it cost blood.

The fight for our freedom is not very different today. Our fight is cultural, psychological and physical. Just like we can't see if we put out the national flag in front of our windscreen, we won't be able to see if we keep ignoring all that's wrong with this country. There is nothing wrong with loving your country, but to romanticise it, in my opinion, is wrong. Our job I feel as people who can empathise, as people who can understand the nuances of life is to tell people what we believe is right.

And so, my job here as someone who is free to form an opinion and realises its duty, is done.

Here's Faiz Ahmed Faiz' 'Bol ke labz aazad hai tere'

Bol ke labz aazad hai tere

Bol, zabaan ab tak teri hai,
Tera sutwan jism hai tera –
Bol, ke jaan ab tak teri hai.

Dekh ke aahangar ki dukaan mein
Tund hai shu’le, surkh hai aahan,
Khulne-lage quflon ke dahane,
Phaila hare k zanjeer ka daaman.

Bol, ye thora waqt bahut hai,
Jism o zabaan ki maut se pahle;
Bol, ke sach zinda hai ab tak –
Bol, jo kuchh kahna hai kah-le!