Parrot in a golden cage

Surabhi was a bright and lively child. She was 6 years old and loved to go to school where she had many friends. Everyone at school was fond of her. One afternoon she came home with a grim face. Her cheeks were blotched with dried tears and eyes showed fear and anxiety. Her mother took her water bottle and bag as she descended from the school bus. They were walking towards their home which was a 2 min walk from the bus stop. Sarita noticed that her daughter was upset about something and thought may be she had lost her sharpener or pencil at school and was scared to tell her. She tried to start a conversation with Surabhi but Surabhi did not open her mouth.

After reaching home, Surabhi changed her clothes and sat at the table to have her snacks. In order to cheer her up, Sarita started telling her a story. 

“An old lady had a pet parrot. She loved him a lot and called him Popatlal. Popatlal was pampered a lot. He stayed in a golden cage and got the best of nuts and fruits to eat. Popatlal was very talkative. He would often repeat anything spoken by the humans at home. One day he was sad and was lost in thoughts. When the old lady asked him the reason for his sorrow, he told her that he led a monotonous life. He wanted to fly like other birds. After all he was also a bird. He wanted to fly and enjoy the open air. He loved his cage but didn’t want to be confined to the cage all the time. The old lady hung her head. She was over protective about Popatlal. She knew that he couldn’t face the cruel world of humans and didn’t want him to venture out. But she had second thoughts. May be Popatlal was right. He deserved his share of freedom provided, he maintained constant vigilance when he was outdoors. Finally both of them agreed that Popatlal would go out in the morning and return home before sunset. Popatlal was happy and the old lady was teary eyed. She warned Popatlal of the various dangers that lay outside. She told him to be away from humans and any creature bigger than him. May it be a bird or animal. The first few days passed without any event. By now Popatlal realized that he was way slower than the others of his kin. He knew that it was due to lack of practice. The birds living in the wild were more exposed to the dangers of the world and hence were swift at escaping and rescuing themselves. One day Popatlal came home in the evening gasping and panting. The old lady was shocked to see him in that state. His usually aligned feathers were bent in wrong directions. On enquiring him, Popatlal told her that when he was feeding on a juicy fruit, he hadn’t noticed a cat approach him until it grabbed him in its claws. He escaped from it by nibbling at its face. The old lady was proud of Popatlal and happy that he was safe. She embraced him and told him to stay put in his cage. But Popatlal, adorning a brave smile told the old lady that he was capable of defending himself and was no more scared of the dangers lying outside. ”

Surabhi was quietly listening to the story and by the end of it, her expression was of question mark. Sarita asked her “Didn’t you like the story? I thought you would love it. Did you not understand something? Do you want me to repeat it?”

Surabhi replied, “I understood the story. But I did not understand something. Can I ask you a question?”

“First tell me what did you understand?”

“I am Popatlal, you are the old lady of the story and our home, where I have every luxury and which is safe, is the golden cage. But no matter what, I should be brave like Popatlal to face the outside world.”

Sarita was confused and amazed as to how could Surabhi relate her world with the story. She asked, “What is it that you did not understand?”

“Mom, unlike the old lady of the story, why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you tell me to stay away from the janitor and that he is a bad guy who would be groping inside my clothes?”

Another chance

Holding his head in his hands, Das was seated on the hospital’s chair, tiny beads of sweat trickling down his face. His wife was probably breathing her last breath while he could do nothing but see the time tick off. He could feel the anxiety of his 8 year old daughter sitting beside him. This was when Das’s mind voluntarily started ruminating his past.

It was almost 10 years since he first met Shraddha. She was his colleague at work. Their tastes and interests never matched. Innocent and introvert was Shraddha whereas clever and outgoing was Das. They had nothing in common except love. Eventually they got married.

They were a happily married couple. They had a daughter Riya and Shraddha had to quit her job in order to take care of her daughter. She was a very good home maker. Everyone became busy with time. Shraddha, with Riya and house hold activities and Das, with his work at office. Das was the busiest. He being the sole bread winner for the family, worked very hard at office and thanks to the Work from Home concept that allowed Das to bring office to home. Virtually Das was always at office no matter his geographical location. Their annual holiday trips seemed more like “work from remote location”  to Das. Shraddha was upset with it. But Das wasn’t bothered as long as he got his incentives and recognitions. Slowly their holiday trips faded into oblivion. It made no sense to go on a holiday when Das could bring his virtual office with him. Shraddha was upset with this and shared her views with Das. But it didn’t matter much to him.

Das loved his family but was too busy to spare time for them. He was working hard for his family and was sure that he would make it up to them in few years. He just needed time to build a career right now. The good night and good morning kisses were long forgotten. He started skipping meals at office and his packed lunch box returned home full and untouched in a row for couple of days. Shraddha was quick to act upon it. She started packing easy to eat and healthy lunches for him. Like a rolled up roti with veggies inside. And often, to make them interesting, she would top the sandwitch with smiley patterned ketchup. She would sometimes give shapes to the sandwitches like teddy bear, stars, clouds etc. On independence day she gave him idlys of carrot flavored, spinach flavored and plain idlies arranged in the pattern of tricolors of flag. Amidst his tightly packed schedule, his lunch box would bring a smile on Das’s lips and he would quickly gobble it up and feel blessed for having Shraddha as his wife. He knew that she understood him. He knew that sometime he would make it up to her. But for now his work was his priority.

Everything went on as usual for Das until this unholy day when he got a call from  hospital saying Shraddha was admitted. He rushed to the hospital and saw Shraddha in the ICU with God knows what all equipments attached to her. Das’s face contorted in pain looking at Shraddha. She surely was looking paler and thinner since few days. But he hadn’t thought she was ill. He thought she was on her crash diet that she occasionally followed. She was sleeping. “What’s wrong doctor?” he asked the doctor. His voice was no more than a whisper.

The doctor took him aside and said. “She has lost considerable amount of weight in couple of months and was visiting Dr. Malhotra for body pains from past two month. She was given general pain killers, calcium and vitamin substitutes but her pain only increased with time. Dr. Malhotra had referred he to me around a month back and she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.”

“When will you start the treatment? I will complete the initial formalities right away. Don’t  delay the treatment.”

“Mr. Das. I am afraid, its too late now. The damage is irrepairable. The breast cancer has spread to multiple organs in her body and bones. That was the reason for her body pains. You should have brought her to hospital during the early stages. You seem to be an educated man. Couldn’t you check the initial symptoms on her?  Loss of weight and engorged breasts are obvious indications.”

The questions came as a tight slap on his face. Das couldn’t speak.

“Morning, she has suffered a multiple organ failure and she is on ventilator now. You can talk to her once she wakes up. But she doesn’t have much time. We cannot sustain her for more than 48 hours.” 

Looked like it was common for the doctor to convey medical status of  his patients. He seemed to be angry at Das’s negligence and showed minimal sympathy while delivering him the news.

Now he was waiting outside the ICU with his daughter Riya beside him. The doctor had told him that Shraddha might or might not wake up before she breathed her last. He was getting calls from office. He had told them it was an emergency. But they seemed to bother the least and kept calling him every 5 minutes. He switched off  his mobile and prayed that Shraddha  would wake up. He wanted to make it up to her. Their annual trips, their good morning and good night kissses and above all he wanted to acknowledge that he always enjoyed her lunches. Everyday he ate his lunch, he wanted to tell her that he loved her but was always caught up with his work. He wanted to apologize to her for not taking care of her, for not noticing her condition. He didn’t know when he started crying.

Sometime later, the nurse told him that Shraddha woke up. Das rushed in and kneeled beside her bed. Shraddha gave a feeble smile and said, “Don’t cry. Its not that bad. Remember the policy I had taken when Riya was born and you had laughed at me? The papers are in my file. Claim them after I am gone.  That is my wedding  gift for her. Love you loads. Sorry for my shortcomings and…” she smiled and left him forever.

Meanwhile Das kept weeping “One chance. Just another chance. I will make it up to you. PPLEAAAASE”.

New Folder

I had opened my pendrive to clear unwanted data and stumbled across the folder “New Folder”. Before opening the folder, I paused and wondered if this is the New Folder virus that contains no data but creates another such folder on double clicking it. I however went ahead and opened it. And voila! What do I find? It’s not any virus but just an empty folder. Apparently I had created a folder with the intention to store some data but had forgotten to do so even before I could name it. That’s the only reason it was still named “New Folder”. This is not a rare phenomenon in our lives. 

Most of us have had a dream. An unaccomplished and long lost dream. The New Folder represents our unfulfilled dream. These are the dreams that we once had but lay forgotten amidst the crowd of our daily chores and busy schedules. They may be as simple as cooking a new recipe, visiting a place of interest, reading a book, planning a get together with friends etc.  For eg. I have created a blog with the intention to keep up my hobby of writing. But I have hardly posted anything on it off late. My blog is the New folder of my life. I am sure everyone of us has a new folder of its own kind.

Existence of such New Folders shows that we are bad at setting our priorities. We have the knack of accommodating myriads of things as our priorities. Like - Waking up early, Cooking a healthy meal for our family, Meeting stringent deadlines at office, Late night calls and meetings. In fact we tend to accommodate everything that could add to our stressful lifestyle on our priority list but not our dream. We sacrifice lot of time and effort on everything but ourselves. Don’t you think we deserve some attention for ourselves? Don’t you think before being kind  and compassionate towards others, we should be kind to ourselves? Don’t you think before expecting respect from others, we should respect ourselves?

Life is a gift given to us by God. Dare to dream and don’t hesitate to fulfill it. You are the best you have. If you don’t have time for yourself, no one else will.  If you don’t respect your own interests no one else will. Let us all recheck our priority list. Let us all name our New Folders and fill it will good memories of our dreams. Let us all give ourselves this lavish treat of satisfaction, for we deserve it.

Ignorance VS innocence

Often we tend to confuse between innocence and ignorance. I have come across few cases in my life. I had always sympathized with a woman of my acquaintance. Lets call her Mrs. A. She was born in a remote village in an uneducated family and was also illiterate. She lived in village until her marriage and since then she was in Hyderabad for around 30 yrs when I came to know her. Conversing with her made me believe she was very innocent. One day when it was raining, she told me that the frogs and fishes are dropped from the sky during rains and nothing I said could convince her that it was not the rains that bring the frogs. She did not know the existence of tadpoles. 30 yrs or urban life had no effect on her mind and could not broaden the horizons of her thoughts. Another such woman, (lets call her Mrs. B) was our domestic help at home, she believed that she frequently catches cold because she had once eaten ice in her childhood. And she was not ready to accept my reasoning for catching cold. I gave up on her when my mom told me to not argue with her and said, “She is an innocent woman from village. They lead a simple life.” They led their lives on many whims and myths. They never believed in change and did not welcome modern or better ideas and ideologies. They were like frogs in a well.

I am now left to ponder about the group of women whom I met in a remote village near Anantapur district. I was in college and we had a proposal to help the villagers in and around Anantapur. It was on this occasion that we happened to meet a group of villagers who were entrepreneurs, who were self dependent. They were equally illiterate and located in an equally remote area as Mrs. A and B. But that hadn’t stopped them from thinking out of the box. They had created a self dependent group or body that would collect meager amounts of money from each one of them and lend it to the most needy of their group at a very low rate of interest. This consolidated meager amount would be enough for the borrower to start up their own business. May it be buying a buffalo, goat or cow for its milk or setting a coin box at their village, or buying manure or seeds for their fields etc. They followed a round robin fashion for lending money.

They maintained the records on their own in a ledger and never faced any discrepancies in their accounts and balance sheet. They did not have a bank account either. As I said, it was a self sufficient body in itself. We, the then students had gone to visit them to impart basic computer skills to them, like MS Word and MS Excel for better maintenance of their records. They were leading a successful and contended life. Now I am forced to think what made the difference to these village entrepreneurs? How come they lead a different life from Mrs. A and B? What made them successful? A and B lead a urban life and are out of their villages but yet are as ignorant as the frogs in the well. But the smart entrepreneurs remain in their villages and are yet successful and have a purpose in life and are broad minded. It’s the difference in their thoughts that had made things possible. They have shunned their ignorance and have accepted the fact that consolidated efforts and knowledge sharing is the route to change. Sharing knowledge is only possible when someone at the other end is ready to absorb it. Knowledge sharing is only possible when we have open minded people around. As was the case with the smart entrepreneurs. Ignorance is only a choice.

Ignorance is a choice whereas innocence is a characteristic. Ignorance is not always a bliss but innocence is. Talking of innocence brings back a vivid memory of one fine morning, when I was on my way to office. I was walking from my home to get an auto rickshaw. It was drizzling and I had to lower my head and gaze while walking. I happened to find a small structure at one side of the road. Covering 1 sq ft of area and was about 1 feet in height. It comprised of 2 stones placed at a distance from each other and a tile placed on them, serving as a roof. Basically the structure was sort of a cave. I saw 2 pairs of tiny feet scuttling in front of it. I raised my gaze to find 2 children, a girl and a boy not more than 10 years old in their school uniform. They were apprehensively peeping into the cave like structure. I realized that it had a tiny Ganesh idol in it with few flowers at the God’s feet. The children were making sure that their Ganesh was not getting wet in rain and were jubilant that the haven was protecting Ganesh from the rain. Those were the days of  Ganesh navrathri. Usually people celebrating Ganesh chaturdhi, install Ganesh idol made of clay at home, offer 5 or more varieties of dishes as offering to God and perform the puja. This has to be continued for not more than 11 days after which, the idol is immersed in a water body, usually a pond or lake. Most of us perform the ritual for 1 or 3 days and later send away Ganesha for visarjan. My mom says that Ganesha has a very huge appetite and as long as we are hosting him, we have to prepare as many delicacies a possible to appease his hunger and pray with whole hearted dedication failing which would enrage Godess Parvathi and Ganesha. As this procedure is tedious, we do not maintain our Ganesha for more than 3 days at our home. We do not want to incur the wrath of Gods. These children, on the contrary have installed their Ganesha on the roadside, offered him flowers and little plain rice placed on a tiny leaf. They were happy that their Ganesha was not getting wet and were sure that Ganesha must be feasting on the rice that they have offered him. They were our watchman’s children and had no worries about enraging Ganesha or his mom. For them, God was their guest and they were doing their best to provide him with food and shelter. Congratulating each other, the children headed to their school. It was that day that I had experienced innocence in its purest form and realized that innocence is indeed a bliss.

Flutter - Prologue

This happened on a stormy day when Kaito was around 15 days old. The sun was on its way to set. Kaito having started to hop, hopped out of her nest, looking back proudly at her brother. "Do you wanna learn how to do this?" she asked her brother. Tuto being rather timid, chose not to reply while was awestruck at his sister who was elder to him by few hours. Kaito wanted to hop back to the nest and persuade her brother to be brave and step out of their home, when a strong wind shook the branches, dropping the nest instantly. At the same moment, Kaito saw her brother crashing to the ground falling dead.

Kaito went chirping and hopping desperately from one branch to the other with the winds blowing against her face. She didn't know what to do or where to go. She was trying to make out the new objects and things she laid her eyes on, cursing her fate and unable to digest the fact that she has lost her brother. When she was wandering thus, she spotted her nest perched on top of a branch. She was filled with delight and quickly trotted towards it. She was sorry that she had left her Tuto alone for so long. She looked into the nest crying "TUTO!” But she did not find him. Instead, she found a broken egg and beside the broken pieces was another egg that was complete and unbroken,

Kaito began to grasp the truth. This was another nest. Just like theirs. "Another nest." It was surrounded by fortwalls of thick leaves and twigs of the tree which protected the nest from falling. However, the twigs have thrashed and broke one of the 2 eggs. Kaito hopped into the nest and stood gazing at the egg with tears trickling down her face. The leaves were fluttering tirelessly around the nest, few of them grazing the egg. Kaito saw thin lines appearing on the egg. Before she could act on it, she saw the lines widening and the egg cracked or rather hatched open to show a tiny ball of skin.

Kaito's heart skipped a beat. It was her Tuto. Yes. This is how he looked when she first saw him. "Tuto" cried she. She got her Tuto back. She lay her tiny, just then feathering wings on Tuto to protect him. "I am glad to see you Tuto. I will never leave you alone." "I will not lose him again. Let mom come. She will set everything right. Yes, mom always sets things right. When Tuto had problem eating the worms and was losing his appetite, Did she not bring us smaller worms and soft breadcrumbs? Did she not partly chew the worms before giving them to us?" When she was thus lost in thoughts of her mom, sleep overcame her.

When Kaito woke up, she found her wings widespread with Tuto beneath them having a carefree sleep. The sky was bright and the storm calmed down but left its signature everywhere. All the trees around were maimed with broken branches and twigs. Kaito remained rooted to the nest recollecting the previous night’s course of events when the bitter fact hit her. “Mom hasn't returned and probably would not”. She wanted to shed big fat drops of salty water but stopped as she heard a feeble chirp of her tiny Tuto. "He must be hungry." She thought and caressed him with her wings and stepped out of the nest to look for food.

She remembered how her mom would bring thick, juicy and slimy worms for them to eat. But she didn't know where to find them. She was looking on various branches of the tree not leaving Tuto out of vicinity. Just when Kaito was thinking that she she was done with the worst part of her life, she found a large white bird with a very long beak swoop onto their branch. Before she knew what the monster was, she found herself in the beak of the bird and her nest with Tuto clutched between its claws. Kaito tried to wriggle free from the monster's beak. But had to stop since it was hurting. Surprisingly, Kaito noticed that staying still wasn't hurting her and it seemed to her that the beak was holding her tight enough to prevent her from falling. Yet, careful enough to not cause her any discomfort. It was the last time that Kaito wept in her life.