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Being Brave

I recently read Annie Zaidi's book about dacoits, dead children and the fear of being groped, and it set me thinking about how easy it is to be brave when nothing is threatening you. I know I present it as an earthshaking revelation that the universe needed me and only me to discover, but it is the start of a blog and I can be forgiven for a small amount of self-importance. After all, blogs are essentially exercises in the unshaken belief that people want to read what you write.

Back to the bravery bits. My daily commute to office, strewn with garbage, potholes, oddly designed roads and casual, insouciant encroachment reminds me repeatedly that in India a lot of things need work, but I also realize I live in a world that is not threatened in any way. A complex web of interactions that we never think about keep our lives free of many fears and constraints, things that I and the people around me take for granted. The freedom to speak, the freedom from arbitrary search and seizure, the freedom to basically go about our lives hindered only by the disapproving looks the next door aunty. They say freedoms should not be taken for granted, yet I think - unless a freedom is taken for granted it is no freedom at all. If freedom has constantly to be demanded we are not yet free.

So I hope my voice will remain brave where there is nothing to fear. Now if only I was better at this head-held-high business.
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