Freedom of movement

Contrary to popular belief people of olden times had much more freedom of movement than modern man. Not only was the population lower allowing man to utilise the free spaces, there was lesser cultural limitations placed on travel. This would seem counter-intuitive considering our concpetion regarding the past as a time of institutionalised discrimination, and our own time as more egalitarian one. But the crux of the matter is that the modern urban man lives in an extremely constricted environment. He is free to travel. But only through the narrow and conjested conduits that is the modern tarred roads. Here too he must follow a myriad of written and unwritten rules. Not only must he keep to a particular side of the road at a particular velocity, but he must be aware and ready to use a large number of legally and culturally mandated manoeuvres to make his way through. It is not surprising that he finds the whole exercise tiresome.

An even more insidious barrier to human movement are those that are not legally mandated, but that which are culturally self imposed. An olden man walking the earth could squat on the side of the road when his legs got tired. He could put a blanket down on the earth to take a nap. What worried him was the Elements and the possibility of being ambushed. The modern man if he chooses to walk the earth can't sit down if it is not a place designated to sit in. He cannot sleep on the side of the road. He not only risks getting his cloths dirty he is at risk of being branded a hobo or even worse a rebel. One pattern that can be noted in our time in India is that the degree of freedom decreases as one moves up the social ladder. In kerala it is acceptable for a Bengali labourer to swat in the foot path. A lower class malayalee may sit on a shop step. An middle class malayalee loses that privilege. Maybe a bust of bench for him. Moving higher up options and space is limited even further.

As we move higher up the scales our freedom is being limited to basically our bedroom ; or even the toilet seat.