While it has been 63 years of independence on paper, freedom continues to remain a subjective term for many around. So in practice, while one may come across as a person enjoying all freedom, it’s not exactly how it seems. Just like on the flip side, a homemaker, who’d otherwise be perceived as the one tied down in life by household chores and familial obligations, may have found her independence in just that.
We talk to a cross-section of people to find out what’s freedom to them:
Housewife
Freedom: For homemaker Pooja Bajpai, who chose to give up her career in merchandising willingly to take care of her house, feels free enough. She says, “I feel good to be living in a society which has outgrown its narrow outlook. A society that’s progressive, broad minded, that accepts women’s independence, their moving out alone, working, partying everything. That apart, I’m so glad that unlike primitive times, today, we women are allowed freedom to take our own decisions, and be confident that they’ll be heard and respected. Somewhere the idea of male domination has simmered just as women’s liberation as surfaced.” And with that, for Pooja, household chores, cooking for husband, doing up the house and more, doing make her any less independent, as she says, “So what if some of us choose to sit at home. Only we women can be housewives, men can never be house men, and that’s how God had wanted. Like I know a woman who works with the BMW company and drives a BMW herself, and still when she comes back home, she cooks for her husband. So this is something that we women do out of choice and not because we lack freedom to move out of it.”
I still wish: “On the flip side, I wish men had gotten free from their male chauvinistic attitude. For, many of them, who’d come across as progressive and broad minded outside, are just the opposite at home. I wish they were more helping towards their wives with house chores and in-laws more open to seeing their sons help their wives. I wish we were free to ask this help from men as our right.
Besides this, I wish we were free to move out alone without the fear of being eve-teased, or being run over by a truck, or being robbed by a roadside man. In that respect, I’d say, British gave us a better life – good roads, railways, education and more. I wish there was more discipline... without that, freedom is only half achieved,” adds Pooja.
Working woman
Freedom: “...to work, spend, purchase, speak my mind, have an opinion, attend late night parties, have boy friends and choose your life partner. I mean just look at what we’ve come to! It’s like enjoying freedom to do just what we want...something that our ancestors could never even dream of. Who’d have thought that a country that followed the tradition of ‘Sati’ would have women being so open to the idea of divorces or walking out on their husbands. Not to say that’s the best kind of freedom we’ve got, but it’s freedom nonetheless!” shares Vertika Singhal, a software engineer, who’s been married for two years now.
I still wish: “...that my being a woman never came in my way of achieving my goals. I wish people did away with this thinking that women are weak and lesser capable than men.. I want freedom from such notions floating with people,” Vertika adds.
College student
Freedom: Shares Indu Bhrit, a third year student of BTech in Trichy college, “I have travelled more than 2000 kilometers from Kanpur to Trichy in Tamil Nadu, only to study here. That’s freedom! For me, freedom is being able to do things the way I want, and here, in a place like Tamil Nadu, that’s so far from my own, I get to do just that. Far from our homes, with friends all day long, parties till late night, not to miss studies in the morning classes, and no restriction from parents whatsoever. And that’s freedom, for sure!”
I still wish: “...I had the freedom and power to make my voice heard in things that matter at the bigger level. Things like stopping institutions from taking bribes, freedom to tell a teacher that he’s being partial, or the administration that the mess food is messy or that the washrooms need a revamp.”
Married man
Freedom: “...to be invited to couples’ parties, spend money on the love of your life without family interference, hold hands or hug your spouse in public, take decisions for your family, invest in things you like the most and so much more,” says Aditya Arora, who works in an MNC, adding, “As for more, we men always enjoyed freedom, it is actually women now who have got more freedom and are enjoying it in every respect.”
I still wish: “There’s no more freedom that I wish for. If given more freedom, we will become an unbridled lot and perhaps go the American way completely. Any living being needs to have certain boundaries and more freedom would only break open those bounds, which is likely to lead to unreasonable and irrational behavoiur,” believes Aditya.
