I AM FREE!

There's a cool breeze blowing through my insides, carrying me out into the deep blue sea. It is exhilarating! To be free spirited is the ultimate nirvana. Many crave what I have but can never achieve it because they are hooked up to something or someone. But me, I AM FREE. 

You are probably wondering - who is he? Ok, no three guesses. Let me tell you my story. I am Gino. Short for Gyanprakash. Now, for those who don't know Hindi, that's Knowledge Illuminator. Still wondering? Ok. I am a page in a notebook. Or at least, I was a page in a book. 

My origins are in the rainforest of India. They didn't certify me so I really don't know which one it was. I just know that me and several thousand others came from one tree that was cut down in a rainforest. The wood of the tree was pulped, treated, bleached and then rolled and dried in some paper mill in Ludhiana. They made huge bundles of the paper. Then a machine cut us into bits and I was born. 

I was totally blank at that point. They then sent me through another machine to draw blue lines on my body. At the top and along my left side, they also put red lines. I came to know later that those were margins. I thought they were just making me look pretty!

And so, I was ready to join my other comrades into making a notebook. To keep us all secured, the machine bound us with tough bodyguards called cardboard. We were stitched and stuck to these cardboards. A pretty picture was stuck on the front and back of the book on these cardboards. Many such books were made and each dozen then packed together. Finally, they put us all into boxes to be shipped to various parts of the country. 

I lay there with my numerous comrades, not knowing where we were going. I could feel the jostling of the truck and our box shook every time it took a turn. The smell of glue inside the box stifled me. How I longed to breathe some fresh air! 

After a few days of this seemingly unending journey, we reached our destination. This new place was called Goa. As we were carried out and placed on shelves, I got the smell of sea salt. Are we close to the ocean, I wondered? 

The bookshop we were in was close to the seaside. From a window, I could see the blue ocean. How compelling it looked! To sail over it, to soar and fall and soar again. I wanted so much to be out there, but alas! I was bound to my comrades and bodyguards. 

But one day, my luck changed. A little child wandered into the shop. She was looking for a pencil and paper to draw a pretty picture of the seaside for her sister. She spotted the book I was in and, without a thought, she tore me out. I gasped at the pain I felt. To be suddenly and ruthlessly pulled out of bondage may sound like liberation but in that moment all I felt was agony. She ran out with me gleefully, with the shopkeeper shouting curses after her. 

At the edge of the water, she stopped and looked at me, staring at my pristine body as if to say, "Why has no one written on you before?" Then she crumpled me up and shoved me into her pocket. 

For a really long time, I lay there in the recesses of her dress. The girl took me home, forgot completely about me as she tossed her soiled clothes into the washing machine and went off to eat her supper.

I lay there in the darkness, breathing in the awful smells that emanated from the other soiled clothes in the confines of that huge tub. 

In the morning, her mother turned on the switch to begin the laundry. As was her habit, she removed the clothes and checked all the pockets. I was saved from ruination! She tossed me on a table nearby where I lay for over an hour, wishing I was back in my book. It was horrible, this waiting and wondering what would happen to me next. 

After an hour or so, the girl spotted me on the table and exclaimed, "There you are! I was searching all over for you." And she grabbed me and started straightening me out. But try as she might, she wasn't able to get me back to what I was like originally. I was indignant with her for pushing and pressing and I longed to give her a slap.

 

Finally, exasperated that she couldn't make me flat again with her hand, she took a heavy iron and began to burn me up. Oh, the heat. It was terrible, I tell you. I screamed in pain but she couldn't hear my shouts. Even after many attempts, I was not as straight as she would have liked me to be. She stopped and let me cool down. 

Then she made an aeroplane out of me and started running around the house, shrieking, "See my plane fly! See my plane fly! Vroom! Vroom! Vroom!" Boy, did she make me dizzy. She ran out of the house and onto the beach, still whirring and shrieking. Suddenly, she lost her grip on me and I ESCAPED.

 I began to soar up, up, up into the air, far far away from her. She shouted and cried and begged me to come back, but guess what, I was finally free. I was never going back to being in bondage any more. I flew on, across the deep blue ocean, towards my nirvana. In my heart, I had three words: 

                I AM FREE.