Aung San Suu Kyi can fly

Aung San Suu Kyi exudes tranquility. The power of still waters that can create such variegated images with a mere ripple. The only way one can admire her is silently.

Her trial has begun. Important people from several countries have congregated. She thanks them and apologises she cannot meet them individually. "Perhaps in better times..." she hopes.

It has been a nineteen-year battle with the Myanmar regime. The citizens are with her. But these are times of voices muffled.

For the last 13 years she has been under house arrest. I find the phrase a contradiction in terms. A house is what makes you just as you create it. If you embellish it, it begins to speak your language. Your house has character. It is the cocoon you retire to when you want to return to yourself.

Being under arrest in a place called home is like being strangled by a loved one.

There have been several instances of such arrests; not all possess the tragic dimensions of Suu Kyi's case. For, she fights the battle with nerves of steel but never near enough to heat for it to turn malleable. She does not go looking for special privileges. The litheness of her feet on the ground makes her even more in touch with it than digging her heels into it would.

Recently, an American swam the lake at the rear of her house and made way inside. Along with him, she and her two housekeepers will be tried. The government does not want her to be around during next year's elections.

It does not matter. 13 years later, she is the one on centrestage. The Myanmar establishment is referred to mostly when there is talk about her.

Unlike so many movements worldwide, she is a one-person army. She is responsible for her every word and action.

They won't release her. That is her victory. And the victory of the people she represents. If you can make the powerful so afraid by your very presence, then the war has been won.

The ones really under arrest are outside, captives of positions and fear.

A bird in a cage can still have faith in its wings.