I have a caged beautiful budgie white in colour with a patch of blue on its neck at home. It has 2 wings like any other bird, but is of limited use now. I wasn't home when the budgie was bought , else would have surely objected in his (my younger brother's) decision to get a pet bird. Why would someone want to take away the freedom of any other living being? I have asked this question to my younger brother who "owns" the bird. His reply was fast- "if I decided not to buy the bird, it would have been in the same cage but in a different location, does that make any difference to the bird?". Well! I have answer to that question but chose not to reply since a long answer from me would make no change to his stubborn going-to-enter- teenage-soon thoughts. Our neighbour bought my brother 2 more budgies . Again! I didn't understand why would someone gift the control of freedom of 2 little birds to someone else. I haven't smiled whole heartedly at that uncle after thay day. I gave him a half-hearted smile. Must have looked a bit weird I guess. My brother was surely happy and I was a little bit relieved that at least the bird now has company . That makes 1 white , 1 blue and 1 green bird in a blue cage. My brother named them Sparky, Blue and Lemon respectively. As years passed the birds grew older . One day when my brother was going to school and when the birds where left open for limited exercise for their wings - Blue flew away to the terrace window and then to the sky! Finally 1 out of 3 got freedom without any struggle ,non violence or war . 2 little birds again were put in cage immediately as the situation was declared "emergency" by my dear brother. My brother may seem like a villian of this story but to be honest he loved all three of them dearly and would take care of them very well. He was very sad when blue left home and remained sad for days. He was very young to understand the importance of freedom . Again years passed by and the 2 birds grew up with my brother. Lemon died of a disease which we still have no idea about. Sparky was alone again. I decided to spend little time looking at him. A ladder and mirror was introduced in the cage a day before and Sparky chirped excitedly upon seeing a new twin white bird opposite to him in the cage . He would look into the mirror and make loud noises and try to peck the mirror image. I looked at all the little things he did to make himself busy. Life would have been different if he (or his mother or his grand mother or may be his great grand mother ) was not caught by the evil money minded people from his home- the vast green Australian forest! He would have been flying with his large group of friends from tree to tree and having fun. I kept wondering what sparky's thoughts were. Sparky was like any other talented person who don't get to use their talent and gets stuck in a place which has nothing to do with his/her talent or interest. Birds and humans feel caged though in the latter case - it's just caged emotionally. Sparky spends days and nights in the same place with us . It's night here now and my brother has put a cloth over the cage to cover him, to let him sleep and we played the online game "Among us" during the lockdown days. Lockdown has made us all equally caged! I hope my brother now gets a feeling of being "caged" and let sparky live his last few years in nature's colour changing, never ending, flattened, higly powered RGB LED - the beautiful sky!
Equalizing life-ingly ,
An.
