One’s initial reaction would most probably be, Oh, how very true.

But it’s kind of depressing isn’t it, to think of your freedom as something co-owned with others. Something that’s never entirely yours, and you can’t put into a safe deposit box, or under your mattress for safe-keeping.

Imagine life as a bus crammed full of people. (And it’s not that bizarre, as some cities are as crowded as that). It would indeed be a sweet life if everyone smelt like roses and sandalwood, kept their extremities to themselves, didn’t make too much noise, didn’t pick your pocket or their noses, and were polite enough to cough and sneeze internally. If only. In reality, every time someone who’s had petai for lunch exhales, you have to hold your breath. When they fidget, something of theirs rubs against something of yours. When they let out a chesty, phlegmy cough with gusto, you get their germs. And if that happened on a Friday, there goes your freedom to have good week-end.

Perhaps the most concrete, obvious, and sometimes envied, brand of freedom is what America stands for. In the bus of American life, you can sue a person for having rubbed a part of him on a part of you. And he can counter-sue you for wearing a blouse that invited the rubbing. It’s a land where, while a person has the freedom to sell dangerously junky food, another could sue him for causing heart diseases after having had the freedom to eat it. While someone has the right to abort a foetus, another has the right to call her a criminal. A person has the right to buy a gun, but his victim also has a right to live. Orphans and abandoned children have the right to be freed from poverty, abuse and neglect. And couples who volunteer to become foster parents to them have the right to claim benefits from the state even if their sole intention were to make money, and then treat the kids no better than they were treated before. In a situation where freedom is perceived to be a privilege rather than a responsibility, wouldn’t it only be a matter of time when freedom becomes the opposite of itself?

This is also a land where ice-cream comes in no less than 31 flavours. And every time you walk through a supermarket aisle, you are reminded by the scores of breakfast cereal brands alone, that every morning is the beginning of a new day full of choices. Whether you are a white male high court judge, a Vietnamese kitchen help, or an unemployed black lesbian single mother, you are entitled to freedom of choice, freedom of speech and self-expression, freedom from poverty, and freedom to choose how you live your life.

In the UK, a Punjabi woman set her husband on fire, after years of tolerating physical abuse from him. She was given an award from the government for having the courage to stand up for herself. It was possible that all that drama started because of some harmless nagging, or perhaps her aloo ghobi was sub-standard because maybe she spent most of her time watching TV or gossiping on the phone while her husband worked 18 hours a day to bring home the bacon. Whatever. Nobody can actually go back far enough to determine the cause. It could have begun centuries ago. But, like a butterfly that flapped its wings in Lahore and eventually caused a hurricane in London, this woman was a part of the chain that caused the death of her husband. As it happened, the husband was too dead to appeal against her getting global recognition for her action. Granted, a bit of nagging or a bland dinner does not justify beating your wife. However, the butterfly had already set in motion a potential hurricane. And he had the freedom to beat her. She had the freedom to set him on fire, and had he survived, he would have had the freedom to put her behind bars, and she would in turn, have had the freedom to appeal against it, and so forth. Or, she could have exercised her freedom to pack her bags way before all this happened. So where should one draw the line before freedom causes irreparable damage? Is it the law that draws this line, or is it everybody’s responsibility?

In another part of the world, a little boy, out of hunger, steals a loaf of bread, and gets his hands chopped off as a result. He has no freedom to defend himself. A 13 year old girl is covered from head to toe, revealing only her eyes. Her choices diminish as she grows up. Her speech, actions, purpose in life and wardrobe are dictated to by her father, brothers, and later, husband. She will not be a high court judge, a single mother, or a lesbian. Well, she could make any, or all of those choices, but chances are she’d be stoned for it at worst, or disowned by her family at best. Her freedom shrinks as someone else’s expands. Unfortunately, or fortunately, she doesn’t even know that there are other ways to live.

So, in the above societies, or in any society, where is the line between the freedom of one person and another? When is it too much, and when is it too little?

What is freedom anyway? Is true freedom a fenceless green field through which you can run endlessly? A beachless ocean in which we can swim forever? If so, where is this beachless ocean and that endless field?

Perhaps true freedom resides somewhere within you? Maybe there is after all, a safe deposit box inside you, or a mattress, where no one but yourself has access to. And even if you were bound, helpless, and physically robbed of everything you owned, you might still be left with one thing. Whatever that one thing is, surely it has to be entirely and perfectly yours. And who knows? It could be even immeasurably bigger than that fenceless green field. (By ZHANG SU LI)