Freedom

It is an ordinary plant in a small pot on the shelf near my desk. For a long time it somehow escaped my attention until one day my colleague asked me to take care of her plant as she would be gone on a long vacation. That's when I started to observe the plant a little more closely. I used to water it, by emptying the bottle of leftover water. The plant had severe symptoms of nitrogen deficiency, I thought a little ammonium sulphate would encourage growth....but the thought that the plant would grow too big for the pot stopped me..I didnt want to starve the plant at a later date. I tried to conserve the nutrients it was losing by putting back the yellow dry leaves that fell on my desk every now and then.
The thought that the plant was a prisoner in the pot always made me sad. It was like caging a bird or putting a fish in a bowl. People might argue that we give them the best care possible. Something that would not be availiable to them in wild. But is that worth loosing one's freedom?Do we have to trade for the luxuries and security in life with the freedom? We assume they would like it in a cage and think of the description the author gives of what Gulliver felt when caged by the 'big people' (I forget their name) ...putting sword fight shows, held by little girls as a toy and being taken for a walk on the sea shore before an eagle swoops and carries the cage away! One of the poems in my Hindi textbook mentioned the tale of a bird in a golden cage fed with choicest of nuts yet still longed for freedom. What is it that drives us to be free?

Man, they say, is free by nature, but I think every living thing is free by nature. There is a finer aspect to this freedom. Most of us consider only physical freedom and seldom think of freedom of thought. How often do we follow things to confirm to 'society' and tend to go with the group? behaving more like a flock of sheep than a fiercely independent lion? Have we traded the freedom of thought for physical freedom that we enjoy? The plant on my desk always inspires me to be free and tells me not to be bound by any limits and listen only to one voice...the voice of consicence, present in everyone of us. And every time I stand up for the little guy and do something that my conscience tells me is right,even at the cost of my hurt ego, the little plant seems to smile and thats the way I keep it alive.
Jignasu.