I AM A FREETHINKER

I AM A FREETHINKER

In 1987 a West German friend of mine had called me a 'freethinker'. Such freethinkers, I was told, were in vogue in the Federal Republic of Germany who subscribed to no particular intellectual ideology, religious denomination or philosophical persuasion as such but were busy churning out their own intellectual responses to the problems of the times and life and history in general. I was intrigued by the term and mentally accepted it for the while before it slipped off my mind till decades later it has resurfaced amidst the turbulence of the times when such freethinking, I believe, has ironically become an intellectual imperative, and I hereby label myself as one such freethinker. That German indologist was very perceptive about my intellectual stance and read deep into me, I am convinced today, as I view myself more than ever before as what I was labelled then.

So, here I go. I am a freethinker by self-admission now, something that I have consciously and unconsciously always been, rebel that I am by disposition and nature, subscribing to no totalitarianism of man or God and shifting ever on the creative sea of ideas, revelling in life's unceasing revelations. 

Written by Sugata Bose