The Bird and the Cage

A birdcatcher cast his net, caught a bird, brought it home and caged it in a newly brought cage.

"Are you cruel by birth?" asked the bird to the cage.

"I don't know. This is the first time I have ever bound someone in me," answered the cage innocently and honestly.

Within a day's time the bird felt suffocated in the cage for not having freedom to fly wherever it wanted.

"I hate you for what you are doing," said the bird curtly.

"I'm just doing my job, but I'm liking your company," added the cage, "Well, if you are so much frustrated of my company, I'll tell you a trick: you can just lift the door from the bottom and I'll be opened."

"Isn't it against your responsibility to let me free?" asked the bird.

"Well, yes it is, but it's against my heart to hold you tightly when you want to fly away. Guilt of being irresponsible is less painful compared to pain of snatching your freedom," said the cage.

The bird flew away.

****

A couple of days passed. The bird flew over the hills, surfed over the waves of rivers, fluttered its wings in joy, eating the fruits and worms it liked, roamed in the skies it always loved. "Freedom is life's ultimate joy," thought the bird.

The birdcatcher caught it again, brought it back home and caged it.

Although the bird was upset, it was not as sad as it was earlier.

"In a way, I'm happy that you are back, but I know you are not," said the cage.

"May be!" replied the bird.

"But this time the birdcatcher has put a small latch at my door. I'm afraid I can't help you to escape unless I fall down from the height and the latch opens itself," the cage expressed its helplessness.

The days passed. The bird and the cage started exchanging the stories of their birth, their lives before they reached here and so on. They inevitably became each other's company. But the bird had some incomplete feeling.

"I have no happiness. I miss my people, my fellow birds," said the bird one day.

"Do they love you so much? Do you love them so much?" asked the cage.

"I don't know, but I am used to their company. I belong there," answered the bird.

"Just flutter your wings and I'll fall down. Let's see if the latch opens. If it does, you can then fly away to your people," said the cage.

"Doesn't falling down hurt you?" the bird asked.

"It hurts, but not as much as keeping you caged here, having your physical presence here and seeing you miss your people."

The bird fluttered it's wings and the cage fell down. The latch opened. The bird flew away.

******

The bird found happiness in finding its flock and joining the fellow birds in flying to far distances in search of food. While the birds were happy to see this bird back at first, gradually it became just one among all. It was not life; it was just existence. It was not living; it was just survival.

The bird just remembered the cage and felt that it should go back and meet the cage once. It parted from the flock and flew back.

*****

"Come! I was expected you!" said the cage without much surprise as if it knew the bird's return.

"Did you know I would return? What made you think that I would return?" questioned the bird.

"Well, you went in search of happiness. Happiness doesn't exist without love. Love doesn't blossom in indifference. In the flock, I could guess, you would be just 'someone to everyone and everyone is just someone to you'."

The bird didn't seem to understand it fully. It just smiled and entered the cage.

*****

The birdcatcher took the bird along with the cage to the weekly fair. A man who was against caging animals and birds bought the bird along with the cage, took it home and opened the cage. The bird didn't fly.

"Why don't you want to fly? Don't you want freedom and happiness?" - asked the man.

"I don't want to be someone to everyone. I can't be with everyone who is just someone to me. I find happiness to being with one who is one only to me and I want to be with one to whom I'm the only one." answered the bird.

The cage didn't get closed and the bird never flew away thereafter.