Joydeep Karmakar

Olympian shooter and shooting coach, Resident of: Rishi Ecoview, New Town

This last year and half have shown us how limited the power of mankind is. In reality, we are not free at all. We think we have freedom of speech, freedom of enjoying facilities. All along, we thought we are all-powerful. We can switch on any appliance. We can post any picture or pass a comment for thousands of people to view or read in a moment.

But in reality, we are dependent on technology and electricity. Think of a day without either, like it had happened to many after Cyclone Amphan. Money would mean nothing if we are deprived of these.

The British may have left the country. So where is our independence? Rather, we are dependent on a host of new things, movement being just one of them in these Covid-hit times. So many tournaments got cancelled last year. Once, I was supposed to travel to attend a Khelo India event and a laboratory staffer had come to collect my swab sample for the pre-travel Covid test. While he was here, I learnt that the Khelo India trials had been cancelled!

Yes, the Tricolour will be hoisted and the national anthem will be sung in the complex on Sunday. Some people will go down to witness that. With double masking and great distance separating one from the other. Fear is in every mind. If it was fear of the British in pre-Independence days, of being punished or jailed, now it is fear of the virus, an invisible enemy which can come in any shape, like they do in the zombie movies!

Manoj Mitra

Theatre and film personality, Resident of: AG Block

Freedom is now history. We are unlikely to get it back in our lifetime. Other than the date, nothing will remain of independence.

We had got political freedom on August 15. For that matter, even on that day in 1947, many had not tasted independence as there was so much uncertainty which side of the border they would end up in. In the years that followed, many did not have freedom to cast their vote.

Now there is no vestige of freedom left in our lives. The pandemic has erased our options. Our theatre group is meeting this evening. I am wondering what I will say. Can any of us decide when we can stage a show again? Even if we are allowed to hold a show with 50 people, ticket sales from that audience will not even cover the cost to clear the weeds at Academy of Fine Arts.

We have reached the final act of the play where our freedom was being steadily and continually eroded, so far politically and socially, and now physically. Will we want to come back to such a world in the next birth?

Sreeradha Bandyopadhyay

Singer, Resident of: CE Block

Of course, Independence Day will always be in our heart as a reminder of the sacrifices of the freedom-fighters. But people of their values are as scarce as the freedom that we had come to enjoy before the pandemic played massacre with out life and livelihood.

Our life has become compromised with every aspect leashed by a killer virus, be it to step out of our homes or to meet people. Man is a social animal. Curbing our natural instincts tantamounts to infringing on our personal rights. We are locked in our home. And we do not even know if there will ever be a respite. With our physical constriction, even our mind is becoming restricted. We are suffering from loneliness and depression. So the mental ingredients to enjoy and celebrate independence will not be there this year.

Behind closed doors, all we can do is pray to be rid of this calamity.

The entertainment industry has taken the biggest hit because of Covid. People will have to survive first to listen to music. Stage shows are a rarity. Of course, many of us are doing virtual concerts. Kintu dudher swad ki ghole mete?

Satarupa Sanyal

Filmmaker, BC Block

We have lost our freedom to a microscopic virus and it is making us stay home, wear masks, get vaccinated… The war with coronavirus will be a long-drawn one and we will have to wait for our freedom.

Today our state can be blamed on nothing but our own greed. The philosopher Rousseau had said that man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains. True, but this is not the case for animals. Animals should be free to fly, swim and run without borders. But man’s greed is making him encroach on animals’ space. I believe this is how the virus jumped from bats to humans in the first place. People need to respect other’s freedom before they demand their own.

In any case what we achieved in 1947 was political freedom. By no other measure can we call India independent.

The pandemic has shown how appalling our medical infrastructure is. The common man barely had access to treatment so we cannot even claim the right to decent healthcare.

It’s not enough to sing Sare jahan se achchha. We want an India where health, education and safety are delivered as promised.

Indians will truly be free the day a woman can walk home alone at midnight singing to herself without a worry.

Sukanta Chaudhuri

Educationist and retired teacher, Resident of: DA Block

The concept of freedom has become more inwardly oriented, as philosophers say it ought to be — that freedom should be in one’s mind and not through one’s contact with other people.

The pandemic has made less of a difference to the lives of retired people like us, who do not have a busy active life, provided one is in good health. Life is less of a deprivation if one can live by oneself.

Salt Lake is a relatively open place and it is possible to walk around and get fresh air without being at risk unlike in the more congested areas of the city. Lot of people come round to sell things at the doorstep, so supplies are assured.

It’s true there is a curb if one wants to meet people and go around. That way one’s freedom is restricted.

But it’s not a human factor that is at work to restrict our freedom. If somebody were to put you in prison that would lead to discontent, anger and a sense of injustice. But there’s no point in being angry with the virus. You have to accept it like a fact of nature. It’s like staying home as it is raining. Of course, you wouldn’t want it to rain constantly. Then you look for more things to do within yourself and within your surroundings.

But what if this pandemic had come 20 years earlier, before the ICE (information, communication and electronic technology) age? How would we have survived the pandemic without the internet and mobile phone, that are the mainstays of our social and professional interactions?

This might have brought in a permanent change in the way we interact with others. We have got used to maintaining relationships over a distance.