"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free..."

It is difficult. Trust me, it's damn difficult to create that kind of an impact again.

He chances upon, amidst hundreds of books, a long playing record. He slides it out of the blue cover, blows off the dust and carefully places it on the player. The officer, busy with attending nature's call is caught totally unawares as Mozart starts flowing and filling up the space. The officer calls out to him. He, by then, is in another world altogether. He locks the restroom from the outside, with the officer caught within, switches on the public address system and brings the microphone close to the record player.

Music fills the air in the prison. His fellow prisoners, who were on with their daily bone-crushing jobs stopped for a while, amazed, staring at the loudspeaker which till then had only blared out orders, abuse and the siren. The warden, with the other officers rushes to his office and finds it locked from the inside. Through the glass pane he was visible. Sitting, leaning back on a chair, his hands behind his head and legs crossed on the table. And with a smile on his lips.
The warden barks at him; asks him to open the door.
He leans forward, turns the volume higher and looks up at the warden. At this moment you can catch a glimpse of the sparkle in his eyes. The smile has broadened.

Yes, they broke the door open and he was switched from his prison cell to solitary confinement for two weeks. But even there, as he says later, he had Mr. Mozart for company.
But how? They surely wouldn't have left him the record player in the "hole", as solitary confinement cells are known.
He taps his head and his heart and smiles. and says "I have it in here".

One of the best cinematic moments ever, this definitely would have had Mozart smiling from the heavens. Also the Lumiere brothers and definitely me. In my case, though, from my room. (Not that it can't be called heaven. After all this is where I sleep hours together, keep staring at the ceiling, day dream, get nightmares, and keep making plans for taking over the world.)
Was it the sheer defiance or the celebration of freedom that makes it this special?
It has to be both.
For those few moments, the man was nobody's prisoner. He could unplug from the constraints thrust upon him by life and create a momentary world which was entirely his own. That is freedom at its unadulterated, purest form.
Probably therein lies the lesson for all who keep being led by life rather leading their own lives. It's always a free choice whether to create "the prison" around, or to dissolve the constraints or rules that tie us down.
There can be no 'statue of liberty'. Liberty is alive and fluid, like the red viscous liquid in our veins.

And squeezing out even one such moment would be enough for a lifetime.