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Beyond Independence Day! Two thoughts.

By ⋅ August 17, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

#1 thought
Back home we all celebrated India’s 59th independence day. There are tons of articles on how the doomsday prediction for the then fledgling nation never happened and on how today India is poised to become a leading global player. Amidst all the kudos and self congratulatory speeches about the progress we as a country has made since our independence from the British Raj, we should not forget that our country is full of huge disparities and we skew almost all statistics related to demographics. But surely things are much better for most of us now and things can only get better.

#2 thought
We might be living in a free society but I cannot stop myself from asking the questions are we really free? And what we think is freedom? Well this post is not about the movie – Matrix. My supervisor put these questions in a nice perspective – we are like the gold fish swimming in bowl. To expand on the analogy I think the glass bowl is what we hold central to our lives. It could religion, parents, girl/boy friend, wife/husband, friends, children, career, academics, recreational activities, money so on and so forth. If this is the case then what happens when these things change?

Coming back to the question – are we really free? We are ‘really free’ in the glass bowl made up of apparent restrictions when we should be really free in the ocean!

Let me know what your thoughts are.

Discussion

13 Responses to “Beyond Independence Day! Two thoughts.”

  1. Freedom cannot be defined by boundaries.
    The presence of all/some of these things in life ->religion, parents, girl/boy friend, wife/husband, friends, children, career, academics, recreational activities, money .. itself is an example of freedom, bcos its our freedom that lets us choose them or incline our life towards them.
    I am free today, bcos what I do today is what I choose to do. If there is something which restricts me, thats bcos I chose it to restrict me.. ;-) )

    Posted by aneeta_04 | August 17, 2005, 7:45 am

  2. i liked the statement -
    >I am free today, bcos what I do today is what I choose to do.

    i think this nicely defines freedom. but if this is the definition then do we always choose what we really desire or in another words do we really have a free choice?

    Posted by iamneo | August 17, 2005, 11:28 am

  3. 2005-1947 == 58

    Posted by bluesmoon | August 17, 2005, 4:22 pm

  5. even the president can be wrong sometimes. arithmetic cannot. this is similar to the issue that caused people to think that the new millenium started in 2000 rather than 2001.

    15th August 1947 was the start of our independence – the 0th year. On the 15th August 2005, we started our 59th year. The country completed 58 years of independence.

    Posted by bluesmoon | August 17, 2005, 5:12 pm

  6. >>Back home we all celebrated India’s 59th independence day
    Its right,its 59th Independence Day and its is also right that we have completed 58 Independent Years

    Posted by aneeta_04 | August 17, 2005, 11:42 pm

  7. Its right,its 59th Independence Day and its is also right that we have completed 58 Independent Years

    Posted by aneeta_04 | August 17, 2005, 11:45 pm

  8. hmmmm. so that was the confusion. its always confusing to people. my big confusion is my age! ;-)

    thanks for clarifying the dates and years.

    Posted by iamneo | August 17, 2005, 11:57 pm

  9. > i liked the statement -
    >> I am free today, bcos what I do today is what I choose to do.

    My first reaction to the statement was that it is not entirely true. For example, can one choose not to eat for days on? We are all bound to some duties (religion, family, friends) – akin to the fish in a bowl concept.

    This also put me into “contemplative” mode and made me wanna google (search, in layman terms) for a good definition of freedom. I hit upon this site – Stanford Enclyclopedia of Philosohpy. Two articles relating to this thought process are

    Hope you find them useful.

    According to me, when we say we are free that’s the political freedom we are talking about. One silly thought – why is it called independence day as opposed to freedom day, even though the struggle was a freedom struggle? :o

    Also, a spiritual thought from some site – “real freedom is freedom from ego, freedom from the past and freedom from the future”.

    Phew! Enough of this already! Back to programming mode. :)

    Posted by anilash | August 18, 2005, 11:21 pm

  10. This removes 1947 (the first) Independence Day.

    Posted by jangid | August 21, 2005, 10:53 pm

  11. Hey! I am glad you liked the post. Those links were in good reads. I liked the site too.

    Posted by iamneo | August 22, 2005, 8:09 am

  12. thanks man. finally we have resolved the problem of the years.

    Posted by iamneo | August 22, 2005, 8:10 am

  13. as posted previously in this thread, it doesnt really matter how many years we’ve passed since independence…coz atleast in India, democracy actually does not end up meaning ‘by the people, for the people, of the people’..On a lighter note, I would only consider India free when I can board/alight a mumbai local train ‘freely’ and ‘independently’ ( without me being ‘pushed’ and ‘forced’ by anyone)..heehee.. ;-)

    http://victimofdesire.blogspot.com

    Posted by anonymous | August 24, 2005, 11:27 pm

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