I AM A FREE SOUL

Celebration is such an underrated phenomena the world over. Celebrating a birth anniversary for example is a mere assemblage of friends and relatives, giving away the birthday gifts, wearing the best costume among all the other friends and cutting the cake without dirtying the table cloth and disturbing the candles, which grow one by one every year. Has anybody ever thought why do we celebrate a birthday, which is in fact a day marking our proximity to death?

It’s only because we need an excuse for a party or for scotch swigs or for simply looking good. We don’t think beyond that.

Any celebration should be the celebration of growth and its periphery should not be squeezed to materialistic gratification.

15^th August has become so much synonymous with Indian Independence that our perception limits ourselves to a restricted definition of both - celebration of freedom and of freedom itself. We fail to see beyond it. It was 60 years back that India became independent and every year we just remember the work done by our great leaders and salute their efforts. Our salutations should grow in quality and not quantity. 60 years is a long time. Remembrance is not enough. Enough celebration has been done for all these years of the freedom of two countries. But now, it’s time to celebrate the spirit of freedom. Only then can we grow as a country and as human beings.

To me celebration of freedom is not limited to 15^th of August 1947. It’s a part of a bigger phenomenon; that of development of the entire mankind as one world and not just one country.

To me the true freedom lies in abandoning negativity, something that makes terrorists out of innocent people, something that evokes discrimination among men and women, among blacks and whites, among rich and poor or caste and creed.

If every day a terrorist turns into a virtuous individual or at least one girl child is saved from being exploited, every single day would call for a celebration of the spirit of freedom. And I salute that freedom. Each one of us can become a martyr in our own right if we step forward to contribute to this spirit. Adopt a child, feed a hungry, free a pigeon from a cage. If nothing else, educate your own children and make them good human beings, so that tomorrow they do not become a catalyst of violence but a harbinger of peace and unity. Charity begins at home!

Let this song by the artist become a global anthem on the eve of a special day and truly make this world a better place to live for the entire human race.