Long long ago, when i still used to study for the tests next day and when mom's cookie jar was still out of my reach, i read a poem- The Seven Stages. It was not an independent poem but an extract from one of those stinkingly famous dramas penned by Shakespeare. It told one about what drives a man from cradle to grave, the journey broken into pieces and dealt with. Indirectly, it also tells one about the real factors that pull strings of life of a human being. In the same year i read about Gautam Buddha- the enlightened one. He taught the world how to live in harmony with those strings. How one could remain at peace with himself and still not spread any dischord in that social fabric. With the passage of time and with the horizons whereto my gaze reached being pushed further, it became increasingly apparent that there were far more fences than the ground left free to graze upon. Religion, history, science, politics, literature, etc. etc. all had walls which you were not supposed to jump upon and cross.

Dad taught me how to read using comic books as his tool. Catchy, innovative, exciting and full of loads of characters based on crazy conceptions, they were a delight to read and enjoy. These alongwith those small moral science storybooks and novelists like Blyton and Kipling form the mental foundations of the forerunners of future. Even then the strings are present just below the surface. The Spiderman in those books can tie anyone with webs, Aladdin of those fairytales can rub a Genie out of a lamp, but even they are not free of the moralistic strings of good and bad, the shoulds and shouldn'ts. They may defy gravity but they cannot defy the pull of patriotism or some other such essentially engineered notion.

When you read your first science or history lesson even those daydreams are snatched from you. You are told that Superman cannot fly because if he did, he will be in violation of something that was discovered and analyzed when an apple fell on the head of a sleeping genius (or was it squatting?) and we are expected to keep that in mind. History tells us that Adolf Hitler was the embodiment of Satan himself and all the western nations were good samaritans. When we grow up we learn about the factors that culminated in the rise of Hitler in Germany or Faraday tells us that nothing is wonderful provided that, and here comes the catch- it is not inconsistent with the laws of nature.You can run as fast as you want to, but there has to be a track. Outside the track, there is darkness. Infinity is there, but it is too big for the human minds, so don't consider it. Religion, nation, race and sex are the big ropes to bind men which are based upon contentions that sound so funny you can almost laugh at them if only the fog wasn't there. Christ soothed millions, Muhammad enlightened a lot and Mahavira helped many understand a set of values. What values? Who gave them? Revealed from above says who? Someone who is claimed as a son of the creator above us ( above which sphere?) or who brings messages directly from him. Why he only? Why no one else? Why is he the last messenger? Do we have nothing left to learn? Themis the blindfolded lady of justice left us as the earth was not fit for her Greeks say. Was the barbaric world before she left just? If questions and possibilities are endless how can one limit the answers? They understood and preached values which society worked upon, they didn't listen to the voice or creator, they listened to the command which was necessary to keep the sheep inside the grazing land and not stray into the wilderness beyond. The other ones in the beginning of this passage were also created so as to negate the threat to social order. How can one land once part of another such land in the past or woven out of scraps and patches which are purely transitory claim the devotion and servitude of those responsible for chalking out the lines or the lines themselves( Oh! The solemn Mother India chants)? Rubbing and making new ones or staying without them is difficult for the weak ones in the pack, so everyone has to stay in them or perish. Whatever looks alike must stay punched together and should behave in like fashion. No doubt they hate homosexuals so much! What is law but the rein to keep the free horses in control of those who ride them. How can they decide what i can and cannot do even before i was born? They want us to be like those hyenas who feed upon their very own kin if they as much as stray out of the pack or want to stay out of it altogether.

The philosophers and thinkers are who think about these generalized planes, but even their ideas and musings are taken as yardsticks and still new knots are wound out of them to hold us tight. What would Marx have thought had he seen how dogmatic those who claim to understand and follow him have become! That they are not ready to even look at all that lies around them as he did.

The come the rebels. Those who say," I don't care!" or "look at yourself before you teach others!" Are they really free? The ones who are out of those shackles put upon men by men. No, they are not! When they blame others, tell them that they are wrong or that they don't care for norms, it actually shows the longing that they have to confirm. They are those who are not able to confirm, rather than those who don't want to. They are in a niche which is even below the ones who are bound. They are the ones for whom the grapes are sour.

The true unstrung one is he who realizes that there are no such concepts as problems and solutions. That whatever the seeming action and reaction is, it is due ti his inner self only. That he himself is responsible for the stirrings in the ether around him and whatever the stirrings are, they are also as true as the calm that follows. The one who observes all but is still not affected in any way. One who understands this is free, but it is definitely not an easy nut to crack. If i would have cracked it myself, i wouldn't have even bothered to write this piece. But atleast by working on it you can think something that is in its true sense what we call out of the box thinking.