Many of us might have heard about the recent Malayalam movie Sara'S which created a commotion in the social media platforms. The story is about a 25 year old girl Sara and the possessive “s” in the title, given in uppercase, assures that the beliefs and perspectives of Sara are given importance.

For those who haven't seen the movie yet, it is a lightly narrated movie, which discusses ‘freedom of choice’ of a woman. It brings forth the taboo concept 'abortion' and talks about how it should be considered as a choice of women and not a choice of family, relatives and not even the father of the child. 

Born and brought up in an orthodox Catholic family, I would like to bring the attention of readers on how this idea was perceived by the Catholic, educated youngsters, the dilemma we face, something which we usually refuse to admit. It was inspired by several discussions took place in our friends circle which includes people belonging to different background and upholding various ideologies and only a Catholic identity in common.

Children who were brought up in midst of prayers, religious dogmas, church and  rituals are later send to reputed, liberal schools and colleges within and outside the state aiming better education. When such children become adults, they are essentially in a liminal space where they fight to make peace with their conscience( most of which was formed based on what they were taught during their childhood) and their radical or rational self, which is a gift of the wisdom they received from their education and experience.

Sara's life and situation can be understood and is relatable for the youngsters. They are like Sara. Yes… They wear modern clothes, they party, they consume alcohol, they yearn for an understanding partner, they want to do daring and unique jobs like her. But the intense internalisation of the 'rights' and ‘wrongs’, the Catholic pro-life, pro-family concepts etc makes the young adults rethink the relatability of them with Sara. The questions arose in the discussion were, will I do this if I was in her position? What would have happened if she had a baby in her hands when she comes out of the theatre after watching the first show of her successful movie? Why can't she give herself two months off for the delivery and come back to her career? 

The earlier narratives of women being a superhuman have certainly to be blamed for this.

Most of us won't open up even though these thoughts linger in our minds, since we project ourselves as rational and progressive human beings, to the society. While asking these questions people comfortably forget the major link in the movie. Sara disliked giving birth to children. The movie is not pro-abortion. It is about freedom of choice. Its not just because of her career that she thought about abortion, but because she never wanted to be a mother. She chose to not be a mother. 

 I consciously made a subjective point of view to write here. ‘The youngsters’ includes me and every other Catholic or probably Christian children who were brought up by religious parents. Though our rational, progressive self reiterate the fact that what she did was right, our Christian upbringing constantly haunts our affirmation, a result of the fear-effect infused into individuals by religions to tame them.

What I understood of my liminal state is; let our upbringing haunt us. Let our education make our life chaotic. Let it churn us. Try being an objective, non-judgemental viewer of the thoughts. Chaos and change contributes to growth and I hope every individual be able to make peace with both the concepts to grow into a better version of oneself.