🪞The Great Mimicry

They will tell you to “be yourself.”

They will say “listen to your heart,” “follow your truth,” “break the mold.”

But no one will ask who built the mold in the first place.

No one will show you that even your rebellion is rehearsed.

What if everything you feel, everything you do —

even the way you seek freedom —

is mimicry?

Not to shame you.

Not to trap you.

But to invite you — quietly —

to watch.

Every human, at every level, is acting out roles they never chose—copying language, emotions, beliefs, ambitions, and even suffering from the world around them. There is no untouched “self” beneath it all; everything is mimicry passed down through family, society, media, and memory. We imitate not just how to live, but how to cry, rebel, love, and even search for freedom. Real freedom isn’t in trying to become something else—it’s in seeing this mimicry clearly and stopping the performance, not with effort, but through quiet awareness.

Ravi, a curious but tired middle-class man who's trying to find "himself" after years of feeling hollow. They sit under the neem tree, the oil bottle nearby, Anju and Adhya quietly plucking weeds in the garden.

Ravi (leaning back on the stone):

I’ve tried everything, sir. Spirituality, therapy, self-help books…

I still don’t feel like me.

There’s something fake about my whole life.

Even the way I talk to my wife — it feels acted.

Madhukar (smiling slowly):

It is acted.

And it always was.

All of us are acting, Ravi.

Every single person. Every single moment.

Ravi:

But I’m not trying to act anymore! I quit my job, I meditate, I stopped scrolling…

Madhukar:

Still acting.

You just changed costumes.

Now you’re acting like a “person who quit the rat race.” That’s the new script.

Before, you were mimicking your boss.

Now you’re mimicking your guru.

Ravi (laughs softly, then frowns):

But then… what is me?

Madhukar:

Let’s go slowly.

Tell me — your name, your way of talking, the way you comb your hair…

Did you invent any of it?

Ravi:

No… I copied my father. Or school. Or maybe TV…

Madhukar:

Exactly.

Even your sadness — how you cry, how you sit when you’re down —

You copied that too.

From Amma, from films, from neighbors, from childhood stories.

Ravi:

But emotions are real, aren’t they?

Madhukar:

They are real. But the way you show them is copied.

And even what you feel — that too is trained.

We’re told: You should feel jealous in this situation. You should feel proud here. You should feel shame there.

Over time, we follow those feelings like duty.

Like script.

Ravi (quietly):

Even my love?

Madhukar:

That’s the most copied of all.

Bollywood, novels, advertisements — they gave us a full instruction manual on how to fall in love.

How to chase. How to propose. How to fight. How to patch up.

Even how to look heartbroken.

Ravi:

So there’s no originality left in us?

Madhukar:

None.

From the way we dream to the way we rebel — all mimicry.

Even rebellion is mimicry now.

Everyone’s quitting their jobs and moving to the hills.

That’s just a new mass trend. A new uniform.

Ravi:

That’s terrifying, Anna. Are we all hollow?

Madhukar (picking up a dry neem leaf):

Not hollow.

Just layered.

Like this neem leaf —

covered in dust, insects, old webs.

The leaf is real.

But hidden.

You don’t have to go find a new leaf.

Just observe what’s covering it.

Ravi:

And the dust will go?

Madhukar:

When you stop adding more.

That’s why I don’t tell people what to do.

I just help them stop doing what’s not real.

No need to chant.

No need to perform.

Just see.

That itself removes mimicry — slowly, silently.

Ravi (still, breathing deeply):

I remember when I was five… I used to sit alone and hum to myself, talk to insects.

There was no script then.

Madhukar:

Yes.

That was before society poured itself into you.

Now you’re not Ravi — you’re a stitched-up puppet of culture, caste, class, Instagram, and trauma.

But the body remembers.

The breath remembers.

Even the child remembers.

We’re not trying to become something new.

We’re just letting go of everything borrowed.

Adhya (passing by, hands muddy):

Appa, he’s sitting very quietly. You gave him the big truth, no?

Madhukar (chuckling):

I didn’t give anything, kanna.

I just took away some noise.

Ravi (smiling through tears):

This… this silence… is the first thing that feels like mine.

Madhukar:

Then don’t hold it.

Just stay with it.

That’s the beginning.

Not freedom.

But truth.

---

Epilogue

There is no technique.

No dramatic awakening.

No new self waiting behind a curtain.

Just a slow soft dropping of what was never yours.

Layer by layer, habit by habit, word by word.

And one day, maybe,

you’ll sit still and feel nothing special —

no big idea, no grand identity.

Just breath. Just presence. Just quiet.

And in that silence,

you will not become free.

You will simply stop pretending you were not.