Slave of Freedom

Boredom makes people think. My last train to Orissa on 17 June was indeed worth remembering. It was running almost thirty hours late. While standing near the door and looking at the green fields, I thought if I had traveled on 12 June I would not have had such terrible and traumatic experience. I had originally booked my ticket on 12 June to celebrate Raja (a very famous festival in Orissa) with family and friends but due to certain work commitment, I decided to postpone my journey till 17 June when it started raining heavily. Heavy rain and flood not only disrupted the movement of trains but also uprooted many families from their homes.


An ontological thought came to my mind. People say being an academic is a COOL job. Academics have no fixed schedule, no rigid office hours, lot of international traveling, and no overwork – in a sense there is not much constraint and compulsion. They are FREE and enjoy maximum FREEDOM. Perhaps this was also somewhere there in my sub-conscious mind, although I had never been a good student of Sigmund Freud. This could perhaps be one of the reasons for which I chose to be an academic besides the fact that I like reading and writing. In fact, I sometimes think that will not be able to do anything else (hence my thought is ontological).

The story behind this and my late journey is my work commitments in Rajasthan. I had celebrated Raja for the last time when I was in my early adolescent. It was lovely in my village. The young boys and girls dressed up in new colourful clothes play in the village backyards. Every house has a swing for which the festival is famous. Boys and girls go swinging and other games. It goes on for three days. I still have that nostalgic feeling lively in my heart and mind. These are some of the things that I miss about my village. To make sure that this year I celebrate Raja with my family and friends in Orissa, I booked the train ticket through a friend even while I was in Copenhagen.


Unfortunately, the protest of the Gujjar messed up my schedule. Trains and buses to Rajasthan were stopped. I could not go to Rajasthan on time to finish up my research. I had to wait and spoiled a week in Delhi waiting for the bus service to continue. Finally, I paid huge amount of money to buy a bus ticket. It took me 15 hours to arrive in Udaipur. I spent few days there in the tribal areas when I realized that my work might need some more time. Since I was not to come back to Rajasthan because of time constraint, Gujjar strike, expensive fares, etc., etc., I decided to stay back for some more days and try finishing up the necessary tasks. I cancelled the train ticket and asked a friend to book it on 17 June.

Such cancellation and extension was not forcibly done the orders of any authority above me. Rather it was my freedom that constrained my activities and plans. I thought that although people think academicians are free individuals not only in terms of flexibility in working hours but also in exercising their freedom in academic writings. In retrospection, I, however, encounter a different existential reality that is manifested through late working hours, academic pressure for publishing, teaching burden, broken family life, etc., etc. This existential reality and constraints subconsciously played a significant role in postponing my trip to Orissa, and in the end, I became a slave of my own freedom or free will.