More Comfort means less Freedom

A Maruthi Van of 1998 Model in our house was the only luxury that my children were enjoying in their life. Whenever a latest Swift, Santro or accent zipped by the side of our age old van, I could see the passion for it in the eyes of my children. Seeing it me and my brother use to feel very sad and also had a dream to change our vehicle to some latest model with more comfort. 

Meanwhile, my Sister brought a new santro and since we are a close knit family, it meant to be a vehicle of our family. So my children were very happy that they could now travel in the new santro fuly loaded with all the features. The D day arrived and with full zeal my two children and my brother children were very eager to sit in this new vehicle.

My sister arrived in her new car, and immediately all my children rushed and ran across the vehicle enjoying its color and ambience. then it was time to take them on a drive. As soon as my sister opened the door, the children just jumped over the seats the way similar to what they use to do with our maruthi, due to the force, one of the knots of her seat cover just came off, and seeing it we all were shocked. Though my sister didnt tell anything, we ourself felt very bad, that the children's very first entry into the vehicle meant a damage to it.

Then we just asked all our children to get down, and in the anger I just smashed on the face of y brother's son anantha who is the most hyperactive of all. Seeing it the face of all my children turned very pale, they were then told that  they should not touch any item nor should move too much from their position in the seat. they all agreed.

We all sat inside and my sister asked achyutha to close the door, as a habit he pulled the door very hardly and with a big bang the door got closed. Everyone in the car were shaken. I got very irritated and just asked achyutha to get out of the vehicle. He asked sorry to everyone and promised he would never ever close the door in that way in future.

Then we went on a ride and through out the ride the children were very silent. they were afraid even to speak. they all very politely obeyed our words and behaved as a disciplined soldiers. Later on from that day my children always loved to travel in our age old Maruthi rather than the new highly loaded santro. Only when taken individually they liked to travel in santro and when they are taken together they all loved to travel in Maruthi.

This initiated a new feeling in me that our thirst for greater comfort in life drives us towards lesser freedom.  I could see that my children use to enjoy Maruthi van drive more than the santro because there we had put lot of restrictions on their actions. Its not just the case of a car. When we watch a film in our nearby Prasanna, Pramod or Veeresh theatre, my children shout, dance and even move around in the hall freely. they enjoy a movie to its peak.  However when we take them to PVR or INOX, we force a lot of restrictions on them. We feel embraced when our children shout, or move around in a theatre of that callibre. 

Adding to this is the latest security checks at bigger malls. the way our vehicles are scanned, we are subjected to manual checks and once my son asked when the theater owners does not trust why should we pay more and go to there malls. 

This makes me feel that the more comfort we try to acquire in life the more freedom we lose in our life. People may think this as a poor middle class mentality. but we enjoy the most when we travel in the least comfortable train rather than in a volvo or flight due to sheer freedom we enjoy in trains. When we are alone, comfort does matter and we can compromise with freedom. but as a family that too with a joint family sized with 11 members we always feel that the lesser the comfor we opt the greater the freeedom we enjoy.