I am presently in an isolated room, nay a cage. The door to freedom is locked from outside. There are five more cells here, three to my left, and two to right.
Hysteric screams emanating from their occupants moved up, crashed at the roof, and then fell into the vacuum with a thud. Resting my chin on the door’s grills, I looked out. I can see a squirrel moving up the mango tree. It paused every now and then to look behind.
The garden outside was in full bloom. Adding to its vivid colours were the butterflies that flitted about gaily in the air. Seeing the approaching squirrel, a sparrow resting on the branch shifted to another.
“How nice it would be to have the dove here?” I thought. The dove, white as snow, had a ribbon-like lining around his neck, blood-red. Ah! How many times have I seen an ocean in his deep green eyes, calm within and restless on surface!
I still remember the day when the dove flew into my existence for the first time. It was an unusually cold day, and I was absorbed in Zorba the Greek. The dove, however, told me later during one of his visits that I had seen him before; to be precise on the very same day I had come into being.
“I was a witness to your being. That was when your mother had come into the cell. Pregnant, isolated and congested with conflicting thoughts, she had remained in the cell, waiting to deliver you. One full moon night, she screamed aloud. But, her piercing cries were dismissed as the usual hysterical bouts. No one came,” the dove recalled.
The dove, I learnt, had come into the world only a day before that episode. “I committed a mistake by building the nest here. You are too young to witness the sufferings of birth. Curl up inside, and close your eyes,” his mother had warned. But, his little curious eyes won’t close.
“Flying is a beautiful experience. From above I see only oneness. The mighty ocean, river flowing in a hurry to mate, a serpentine mud-road sinking at the ocean’s feet before resurfacing again at its head, yes, to witness oneness, you need to fly,” the dove once philosophised, as we sat in the balcony, enjoying the stillness of silence.
“How beautiful it would be if the two of us could fly together?” he spoke again.
I could not suppress my laughter.
“Do not laugh. Your body is just clay, I know. But, if you really want, you can convert it into any form. Only thing is, you should be agreeable to place yourself on the potter’s wheel. Try! One day, you will grow wings, you too will fly and realise the oneness. But beware! Your realisation could get dismissed as exoteric hallucination.
It had happened before. It could happen again. For, there is nothing yet in this world to measure the fullness of reality,” the dove finished his sermon, flapped his wings and moved away from my eyes, smaller and thinner before becoming a fuzzy dot.
How many years have passed since? Twenty, thirty, forty…? There was no certainty. But, since then I had been keeping my body on the potter’s wheel on and off…examining me for any visible growth of wings.
Then, it happened one day, or at least I thought so. I found myself light and breathing through my ears. The ground on which I stood moved up like a foldable mat. Majestic trees nose-dived with their roots spread to infinity. My heart choked.
The sheer speed made me sick and dizzy. But then, at some point, I must have let go of the whole affair. Soon I found myself up, steady and smiling with no signs of acrophobia. When I looked down I saw the shell inside which my being suffocated, all long, lying lifeless on the potter’s stiff wheel. I do not know how long the sacred sojourn lasted. But, when it ended, I wanted to share my experience first with the dove, my little companion. I waited and waited, I do not know for how long. Yet, he did not appear. When the waiting became unbearable, I declared: “I have grown wings. I can fly. If I can, you too can.”
I was ridiculed, insulted and jeered at. “Here comes the bird!,” they said, on seeing me at the market. So, I decided, it was better to live inside the cell, the cell where I came into being, than with a people who would never understand me. And, can there be a better place than the market to embark on such a pilgrimage?
The mango tree outside was shaken by a strong wind. Suddenly dark clouds appeared on the horizon and rain drops pelted down from the heavens. The squirrel on the mango tree took shelter in the verandah. It stood erect, brought its hands to its mouth and nibbled at the food they held. Then, it turned its head and looked at me. As I watched, much to my dismay, it quickly changed into the white dove, my old friend! “You’ve returned to your abode….the abode in which you came into being…Now that you have grown wings it is a fearful idea to be here.
Come, let us fly together,” he said flapping his wings. I see that the rain has now stopped.
The sky is clear and blue. I also see the wet branches of the mango tree blushing like a bride, and of course, the the squirrel moving up its branches with innocent steps. It is a sunny day again!
(The writer is a senior journalist, political analyst and communication specialist)