In Life, don’t seek permissions, take decisions!

You don’t need anyone’s permission to live your Life. You just need to make the decison – and simply live your Life!

The other night I watched the much acclaimed Hindi movie Highway (2014, Imitiaz Ali, Alia Bhatt, Randeep Hooda) on TV. It’s the story of a girl, Veera Tripathi (Alia Bhatt), who is abducted and begins to love being held hostage. She feels so because she feels free – and secure – in the presence of her captor. Her own Life, until she was abducted, was like the way a bird’s Life is in a golden cage. Her captor takes her on road trip, trying to avoid the cops who are looking for them, up in the mountains. In one memorable scene, the Veera (Bhatt is brilliant here) is awestruck by the sheer power and beauty of a stream rushing down the hills. She is unable to describe how she feels. So she simply wrings her hand and gasps in disbelief. Later on in the film she tells her parents how ironical her Life has turned out to be – that she feels like a hostage, suffocated and buttoned in, in their presence, in her “home”; yet, she feels “free” in her captor’s presence, though she really is a hostage being held to ransom. She finally chooses the other Life and declares her intent to go away from home saying that she needs nobody’s permission, that she really wants to live her Life, her way.

Veera in Ali’s Highway personifies each one of us – you, me, every one. If you examine your Life closely, you will realize that you are living much of it for others. And not for yourself. You are very subconsciously trapped in family, social and professional commitments. You want to be living a different Life, doing what you love doing, but you can’t peel off from the Life you have chosen because of the responsibilities that have been dumped on you. Now if you were content with that Life it is fine. But like Veera, you too are suffering. Not everyone will be lucky in encountering a captor who will pry your soul open and help you touch and feel Life. You have to decide for yourself. And the sooner you do that, the longer you will enjoy your Life! Simple. So, if you are not enjoying the Life that you have, go live the one you want to. Don’t sit there and complain. Remember: if you grieve, complain and suffer, you have only yourself to blame.  Because, you need no one’s permission to live your Life!