If life offers you an opportunity to be independent, it is no less than bliss. For me, being independent, is more a feeling, a way of life. It doesn’t keep me a brake-free person. My regulatory mechanism keeps me sensible and pushes me to behave more responsibly. Being independent is not opposite of constraint-free. It allows creating a blockage-free surrounding rather than going moody and having no sense of discipline in life.
We all are born independent but the social rules and regulations create a barrier rather than providing ambience to bloom to see n realize the beauty of life. How I take my independence? It is quite interesting. I exercise my decisions rationally. I take it as a right rather than a lost-and-found privilege given by someone. Society controls and creates mindsets. As a child, we decide on likings and disliking strongly, but as we grow older, we create a social version of ourselves. I find it quite funny. We try to fit in designs made by someone else, throughout life and end up sacrificing living. This is nothing less than a crime and a gross disrespect to life itself.
I am financially independent. Working with the State Government at a higher position comes as a strong accessory to my social independence. Emotionally, I do sacrifice some part of my freedom but that is an investment. I am not too fierce in my relationships, not too independent to push the other person in my ambit. I respect each person in my life.
Summing up, independence for me is the sublime form of living a mortal life. It comes with a deep sense of responsibility, to me. It keeps me grounded, and, push me to fly sky-high. I carefully choose ways to fulfil my dreams and decisions.
LALITA PRADEEP
Director, SIET,UP
The stereotypical norms, the mindset which has no possibility of a cure, the atmosphere of more words than wisdom- amidst such an upbringing I was brought up. Wherein one never asks where and why my brother is going anywhere, I need to keep them assure about every fine detail. Nevertheless, I am still always supported everywhere!
Independence has different meanings for each one of us. For me, it is that plunge each one of us wants to undertake to overcome our own limitations but sadly only a few can do so and only those few attained that real freedom in actuality. For the thousand others including myself, just keep on crying about what we have not got; keep on aspiring for the position we want to achieve but we have at the last somewhere only found solace within the existing norms. It’s not that we don’t know what is right and what is wrong and what should be done but we belong to that section of the Universe who though are highly educated but still don’t muster that courage to use their knowledge for a practical purpose; We have just silently accepted everything as if it were a part of our Destiny.
Thus, Independence for me is to reach that threshold, the point from which I could take that higher plunge for my self, for my own sake. Till the point I don’t reach there, I will keep trying, I will keep falling and rise again for sure but I know its only today that I am bound within the clutches of society. The moment I will be able to imbibe that courage to break open these shackles, Independence will be solely mine.
Nancy Gupta
When you are nearing sixty and want to express what independence means to you, people are bound to wonder, why now?
As a bright student, it was a foregone conclusion, I would have a successful career. Life brought me to a small town and gave me a kitchen, so I learnt to cook several cuisines well enough to be appreciated. Independence means making the choice to say I can do this and doing it, not whining, complaining, seeking sympathy.
I diverted my capabilities to serve society as an Inner Wheel member. The small-town gossips berated me but I believe that life runs on parallel tracks, do everything together. Prioritizing happens automatically. Being independent means ignoring the trolls and getting on with life.
Travelling solo since my early twenties or with my young boys across the country, co-passengers would always look questioningly. The struggle to be the mother that society wanted me to be and the mother that I wanted to be, I won! That is Independence. Seeing my boys respected by and respectful to women, capable of handling home and career without the ‘woman’ beside, I feel pride in my upbringing, of not letting other people hold sway over me.
Independence is about self-realization, breaking the age-old stereotypes, chasing dreams and feeling worthy, having an identity. A closet writer for decades, I have now started sharing my poems during the pandemic days.
Freedom of thought, speech, being in control of my life and doing the small things that truly make me happy. Being independent means I have the confidence to make decisions and take responsibility for them. My independence depends on my strength, my energy, means being secure in my own person whatever my age.
Prabha Raghunandan
