An old piece...

Was sifting through my inbox for some mail, when I chanced upon this short film review I had written for a contest last year somewhere around the Independence Day. Just realized that I hadn't shared it on this space. So here goes...

Fettered Freedom

A nation that is free of foreign rule yet chained by internal ogres - a whole people who no longer serve an imperial power but are slaves to circumstances of poverty, destitution and illiteracy – a freedom that is fettered – the 1-minute movie, Independence, by Neeraj Ghaywan is about the economically and politically liberated India that continues to bleed…

Through the character of a girl trying to make money by selling Indian flags, Neeraj walks us through the paradoxes that our country is torn between. The clichéd gap between the haves and have-nots is a stark reality that many of us try to forget in order to keep our conscience clear.

Though the imagery in the movie is hard hitting, and therefore, deeply unsettling and disturbing, the free entrepreneurial spirit of the girl whose eyes twinkle with hope and steps bounce with the urge to dance forward make me cross my fingers in faith that hers will be a more optimistic flight in life.

And, thus, Neeraj leaves his audience with conflicting emotions of despairing reality and desperate prayers for change.

A powerful and moving one-minute saga, Independence is not a one time must-watch. It is a must keep for a lifetime – a must-watch every time you curse your fate because your long list of wishes could not be fulfilled, every time you think you do not have enough, every time you are blinded by the neon lights of cushioned living, every time you are lost in the maze of money and the rat race, every time your soul feels smug with the camouflaging cob webs you have weaved around your self, every time the calendar reads 15th August and you plan your “holiday”.

Fettered freedoms...

I do not understand the meaning of freedom completely.

I do not know what freedom means to me. Not completely. Am I free? Free of what?

I do not beleive in absolutes and that is not the only impediment in my attempt to comprehend the concept that is "freedom". I tie myself in knots everytime I try to explore the essence of the word.

Language deceives. We have simple terms to denote complex emotions.

However, a long time ago I read Kahlil Gibran. And continue to read him again and again. He talks about freedom - a sense of freedom that I relate to, and that provides a more panoramic view of the perception that is 'freedom'.

"At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,

Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise
him though he slays them.

Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel
I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke
and a handcuff.

And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even
the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when
you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care
nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above
them naked and unbound.

And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you
break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding
have fastened around your noon hour?

In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains,
though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.

And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard
that you may become free?

If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with
your own hand upon your own forehead.

You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the
foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.

And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne
erected within you is destroyed.

For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny
in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?

And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen
by you rather than imposed upon you.

And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart
and not in the hand of the feared.

Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace,
the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the
pursued and that which you would escape.

These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.

And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers
becomes a shadow to another light.

And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter
of a greater freedom".

- Kahlil Gibran