Freedom

Pranab Ghosh

Our ancestors...

Their fight...

Their tryst...

Bore fruit

At midnight

Seven decades 

And 

Seven years ago...

I was born in a free country...

Our country...

Among our people.

Our people...

Our friends...

Our family...

Our countrymen...

We felt...

Safe...

Secured...

Loved...

We felt 

Like...

We were eagerly awaited...

Our arrival was dear 

To them

To...

You know...

We grew up 

Amidst joy and laughter

Agony and ecstasy 

Pain and pleasure

We laughed

We cried

We won

We lost

We fought...

For

Better

Life

Job

Career...

...

These too were years ago...

Years...

Say, five+ decades ago...

Now our sisters, brothers and children embark on that journey down the paths strewn with joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, success and failure...

The same paths...

Expecting the same share of success...

Or failure...

Or heartbreak...

Or love...

But...

But...

But...

Only a few months ago

In August 2024...

Couple of days before our last INDEPENDENCE DAY...

The headlines screamed... ‘dependence’, ‘limping democracy’, ‘degrading moral values’, ‘social insecurity’, ‘heinous crime’, ‘murder’, ‘rape’...

(dependence) On... (lumpen ideals!)

‘Government’ fails to protect...

Human ‘dignity’... 

‘Blind Opportunism’ seems to be the order of the day...

‘A/MEDICAL/INTERN/[LADY]/GET/RAPED AND/MURDERED/IN/HER/WORKPLACE/-/A/HOSPITAL’!!!

A hospital...?

A lady doctor...?

Her marriage date had recently been finalised...?

What are you talking about?

What are you saying?

Well, it takes time to digest...

Even after postpandemicdeathsandjobloses!

It takes time to fathom...

To realise...

What is being discussed...

What shall we all do now...?

It takes time to regain sanity...

Burning anger creates a hole in equilibrium, balance tilted, we feel like beheading the ‘culprits’!

But alas!

There is law...

There is democracy...

There is administration...

Criminal jurisprudence!

Therefore...

We rally...

We protest...

We decide to stand/by/our/daughters/sisters/friends/mothers/etall/at/midnight/to/take/over/the/streets/to/make/everyone/understand/that/women/have/right/to/feel/and/stay/safe/even/at/the/dead/of/the/night/under/the/sky/anywhere/in/this/city/state/country!

And that too after seven decades of 

INDEPENDENCE!!!

Independence...

What

Where

When

Who

Why

And

How?

Well we are cooking ‘breaking news’ at lightning speed, beating competition hollow!!!

Crime sells...

So does sex and sleaze!

Well our democratic foundation has different ingredients, I think!

What do you?

May you,  Mother India, be Omnipotent...

Omnipresent...

And 

Live happily ever after!

After our births and deaths...

Let LIFE renew its meaning

Its purpose and live on

With renewed zeal!

Let

Us

All!!!

By

Pranab Ghosh

Pranab Ghosh is an award-winning journalist, poet and author. His prose and poetry have been published in several magazines and e-mags of India and other countries. His two latest books of poems – Karma Cola (Impspired.com, UK) and Love, Religion & Politics (Virasat, Kolkata) – were published in 2023.

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Setu, November 2024