Skip to main content

90 Days of Freedom

Forced Confinement: Preparing for exams
There is a palpable sense of excitement in the Land of Lilliputians. 

“The freedom!” I can see the words written over their faces as the Lilliputians slog around their books to somehow weather the slings and arrows of exams.

“Summer holidays. We will have 90 days!” Omar’s eyes shine with the possibilities of unlimited freedom and that too for 90 days.

“What do you plan to do?” I ask, some of the excitement rubbing in on me.

“I will get hold of the TV remote and will keep it in my pocket 24/7. I will sleep with a remote in my hand and will immediately turn on the TV when I wake up.” Omar has dark plans up his sleeve to make up for the ‘externally’ imposed deprivation.

Now I am curious. What plans the others have?

Saif’s plans, predictably so, revolve around cricket.  “I will play, play and play,” he enthuses and circles his arm in the gesture of throwing a ball.

Zainab is the literary type and intends to read every book by Percy Jackson.

Roshan has ambitious plans. “I will write a book of 500 hundred pages. And I am not telling anyone what it will be about; somebody might steal the idea.”

Mobby is the philosophical sort, or maybe he is a practitioner of Zen. “I will think about it when holidays start,” he says calmly, sage like.

Freedom for the Lilliputians isn't just about freedom from the constraints of school; it is more about being able to do what they want to do.

I wonder if this type of freedom is the prerogative of childhood. With time, wouldn't they, imperceptibly & unconsciously, internalize limitations imposed by society, norms, and the dictates of bread and butter?


And how much we adults will contribute in teaching them to bow under the pressures of conformity?
Labels:

Comments

  1. Max15 October 2024 at 01:08

    I admire the effort that goes into each post. This blog is, without a doubt, the best source of information.

    Procan Puppy Food

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Selfishia got Rid of Her Feathery Moustache

Selfihsia the selfish hen was unhappy. And understandably so. After all, having a feathery moustache is not the same thing as having a new hairdo or a brand new dress from a well-known boutique. She couldn’t flaunt it.     It didn’t make her feel beautiful. It didn’t even make her feel like an ordinary hen with a few feathers missing. She felt feathery at the wrong places and this made her sad. One day when she was crying and looking at her reflection in the puddle of water near the grapefruit tree, Kayseria strutted toward her. “Selfhisha, I have clucked at the thought and have finally come up with a solution,” she said. All the hens had been thinking about Selfishia’s moustache for a while now. There had been five meetings under the grape fruit tree to get Selfishia out of her predicament. “Really!” Selfisha clucked loudly with hope. Hearing Selfishia’s loud cluck the others came trotting and gathered around her. When the cluck cluck of exci...
7 comments
Read more

Napoleon and His Family in the Land of Lilliputians

As Napoleon the rooster traveled in the white Suzuki pickup van that was taking him to the Land of Lilliputians, he wondered. Yesterday, he along with the five hens who now cackled in the van were put in a separate basket.  They were sold to the Lilliputians. Napoleon looked at the five hens who were now under his guardianship. “What a diversified lot,” he thought. Somebody cackled in soft purring tones. He knew it must be Chandni , the eldest, the prettiest of the hens. She was snowy white with black dots.  Yes, there she was, sitting snugly near the window; oblivious to the world around her except the warm egg which she had just laid. Chandni was good at it: laying eggs day after day. “The ever maternal Chandni,” thought Napoleon and smiled indulgently at her. However, at times it irritated him that Chandi treated her eggs as if they merited a pride of performance award. “As if this is the only act of creativity in the world! But then this is a hen...
8 comments
Read more

Lessons in a Yellow Scarf

A yellow strip of cloth, with mauve ribbons sewn at the ends, hangs on my computer table.  No, I have not draped my table to ward off some ancient or present demons.  Much as I believe in charms, I have found them impotent when it comes to demons. Demons, whether ancient or newly befriended, are here to stay. So I might as well make peace with them. The yellow strip of cloth, which gently sways as I grope my way through words, is a scarf that is supposed to drape my neck and not my computer table. It’s a scarf even if it doesn’t look like one. It’s a scarf because Omar says it is; he would know because he designed it. It was after much cajoling that I was allowed to hang the scarf on the table instead of adorning my neck with it. I had to rest my case on a built-in engineering defect: that of having too thick a neck on which such a beautiful scarf wouldn’t look becoming. The cutting, sewing and designing business is the latest craze sweeping the Land of Li...
4 comments
Read more