Syria blog: Who needs permission to speak to a brown-eyed girl?

Indians are spoilt by choice. We take our small and big freedoms for granted but travelling and reporting abroad can change one's perspective on what we do and do not have.

I was wandering from shop to shop looking for an English-speaking face.

Suddenly, I found myself looking at a pretty brown-eyed girl who herself seemed curious about my foreign face. When I went inside her shop to enquire whether she spoke English, I discovered that she spoke the language (slowly) since she was studying it in college.

Encouraged, I asked her whether she knew anything about India and was surprised to be greeted with a "namaste".

Now completely emboldened and wanting to capture our conversation on Indian films, I asked my cameraman to quickly set up his equipment.

I was happy that I finally had a face to one of my stories but my happiness was quick to disappear into thin air.

In a flash, a heavily-powdered, matronly-looking woman darted into the shop and made a quick point to the officers designated by the ministry of tourism to help me.

Suddenly, the girl said no.

Then, a six-foot-tall man darted into the room, unthreatening but firm, speaking quickly in Syrian to the officials.

I looked at the girl and asked, "What is happening?"

"I don’t have the permission and neither you have it to speak to me in the market,” she said.

I said that we could walk out of the shop and that she could then talk, as a Syrian citizen, about Indian Bollywood films.

All she said was sorry, after which I quickly left the shop.

Why do I need permission to speak to her for a story about movies, I thought.

But there are places in the world where you need permission. Getting judgmental is easy but the girl's face and her words would not leave my mind .

In fact, they reminded me of conversations with people who are fascinated by the idea of limited democracy which they say leads to better economic growth and opportunities.

I think that is a bogus idea to perpetuate oppressive tools of power. The idea looks good because the current generation is more enthralled with the idea of choice than rights because we take those for granted.

I can say with great conviction that democracy is better than dictatorship or authoritarian rule with better economic results. To do what you want, to say what you want and to question authority empowers people in the true sense of the word.

The desire to subvert the true nature of our Constitution to build a consensus on limited democracy is, to me, a disservice to the Constitution and to democracy. Every Indian should be mindful of such attempts, and instead help strengthen the idea and roots of democracy. That idea is coming under increasing threat from the country's right wing which is making free speech and democratic rights subservient to imagined national sentiments.

If India is to remain a nation where "permission" is not to become the norm in civil society transactions, then people need to be even more vigilant and careful about the limited-democracy fantasy being spun.

But I was in for a surprise when I went to the trade fair.

Many people there spoke to me about Syria. Some on the record and some off it.
The reconstruction fair means a lot of things to a lot of people. For the government, it is about ability. For non-political citizens, it is about enjoying good food, and for the politically-aware, it is hell and heaven together.

They have economic, food and cultural choices to make but not political. That is the reality. But still, a better reality than ISIS.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)