What is meant to be in free space to you? – some say our frozen air-conditioned room with Netflix and hunched body on the couch, while others may find it in a terrace view of the horizon at dawn or dusk. Someone known to me considers reciting mantras as free space, while others finds it in meditation. This space keeps on fluctuating in the internal and external sense. Nevertheless, dreaming while sleeping can be the best free space for most of the students. Also, composing a song can be a free space where one can come out with unbridled words and feelings in the lyrics. For someone free flowing of the limbs can be a free space. for some, free space might be their hostel room, and for some their office cabin. Everyone with their past experiences defines their free space.

For a bird who flies in the sky, when put into a cage, aspires to be a part of her free space i.e., sky, for a fish who lives in the pond, suddenly bound to an aquarium, screams for her free space. For a pet, whom you take for a walk on a daily routine or leave free on the streets for strolls, yells like anything when you leave for your holiday plans and locks him inside. The concept of free space is not limited to the birds, fishes, and pets, but to the entire ecosystem which included the most yearning specie called “Man”.

Before you progress to read the full blog, I would like you to leave a crowed place or some attentive desk, rather read it while sitting on a fully comfortably couch or a bean bag. Yes, no issues I can extend some writeup till the time you catch your couch. What if I begin with the story featuring a crow and a greasy pitcher searching for stones to reach the last line- “ghade me dale kankad, Uper aa gya paani, kauwa ne pe lia paani, khatam kahani” I hope you found a comfortable place to sit through. Ha ha ha 

Let’s come to the point of free space now which I experienced and found as a beacon to way my thoughts. Last month in March I attended some art and theatre workshops in Delhi, where I attended four workshops – On Dialog Delivery by Kriti Pant, On Movements and Expressions by Savita Rani, On Sound Design and Music in Theatre by Suman Balakrishnan, and last but not the least Ways of seeing a theatre by Vikram Phukam. You all might be wondering why I told you to sit on a comfy soft couch. So yes relax, deep breaths, relax close your eyes, and think as if you are going to be a part of my class session today, For the one who don’t know how to dance, let’s do it together, and you need to be calm down, and down and down. I hope there is nothing in your mind rather than your presence with yourself. Now think what it meant to you – “your presence with yourself”. It is as simple as you are feeling the process of breathing touching every wall of your organs while breathing. Stop feeling drowsy rather activate your mind 1,2,3, go. Don’t leave aside feeling the deep breaths, inhale…… and then exhale…… now you all may stand, close your eyes (stand as if you rotate your arms, or kick with your leg so it doesn’t collide with the wall or any object), the deep breath and start moving your limbs you wish to move, feel the air that your limbs are crossing, feel everything, now it’s the time to move two limbs at a time, enjoy the music of the movements, and yes you have started dancing even though you don’t know how to dance, here my inference with the dance was with the jammed limbs and giving them a movement. So, my task is done. Relax and now you can sit comfortably. Have you noticed I gave you your free space to think, to feel, and to move around and you were successful in performing something out of it. This is a power of free space in the mind. To accomplish anything that we need is the concentration and comfort of our mind and body. Why I gave you an example of my workshops just because every workshop begins with the free space to energize our body and mind, to what you are pursuing. You might have noticed why everything begins with one-minute silence and ends with one-minute silence in the Rishihood premise. It is the most powerful sandwich activity which mentally absorbs the crux of the filling. Hence 1-minute silence doesn’t mean you have to count 59, 58,56,45,32,21,12,9, 8, 4,3,2,1, no, a big no, it is for opening the pores of the mind. Like a baton to activate your mind and presence. I hope this blog will help to all the family members of Rishihood University. In the end, I would like to say –

 “Lost in your free space and give birth to your creativity”.  – Riya Vardhan Saxena

-Riya Vardhan Saxena Research Associates, Centre for Human Science, Rishihood University,