escapedparrot

THE ESCAPED PARROT

Acanta Sarada Devi

Big chunks of clouds are scurrying around in the sky as if they are in a hurry. A small white fleck
of cloud slithers one direction and another baby cloud in another direction. Then the two chunks
stop in the middle and merge into one. In a split second, they break up and each goes its own
way. They are taking over the sky and changing into different shapes ... like scattered cotton
balls, or jasmine buds that slipped through the fingers.

Kamakshamma sat by the back door, watching the floating clouds. She is depressed. How
quickly the clouds are changing shapes! ... Even before she has gotten used to one shape, it is
changing into another! They all are gliding away so beautifully! Embracing each other snugly
and breaking away the next moment! Momentary attachment, she told herself.
The Sun is sinking. There is no telling how much quiet this house and this garden will be by
dusk. Of the two servants in the house, for one, it is to time to start cooking, and for the other,
time out. The rest of it is just absolute silence, but for the rustling of the leaves caused by the
wind!

The schedule for Kamakshamma is just to sit there everyday by the door facing the garden, lost
in meaningless thoughts, and watch the clouds, the trees and all around. There is no change in
this ever. This house is located on the outskirts of the town, with three mango groves on the
three sides of it. Green leaves and green parrots happily chirp, freely come and go as they
please. The gardener works in the garden during the day and leaves in the evening.
Kamakshamma’s husband Sundara Rao inherited this garden from his father. He acquired the
house himself. He has some business in the adjoining city. Kamakshamma never asked what
kind of business he was doing. He would not tell, even if she asked. He believes it is not
necessary for women to know such things. As far as he is concerned, no need to mention
specifically things such as playing cards and roaming around with friends are part of his
business.

Everyday, one train comes in the morning and leaves in the evening sluggishly. There is no
specific time; it arrives sometime after seven in the morning and goes to the neighboring city. It
returns in the evening sometime after seven. Sundara Rao travels everyday by the same train.
He leaves in the morning and returns home at night. The station is two miles away from his
home. In the morning, he eats his breakfast and walks to the train station. If he has something to
carry, Sankaram, the servant, goes with him, carrying it. The train is very much used to Sundara
Rao’s travel. No matter how late it is, the train will not leave the station until he has got on it.
Sankaram goes to the station again in the evening and returns along with Sundara Rao. That is
the way it has been every day.

Fourteen years back, Sundara Rao felt like having a house built in the midst of this garden and
live a life of solitude. He told himself, “What is there in the cities but for the dirt and murk. On the
other hand, here it is so peaceful. The city is close by. I can go there each day and take care of
business.” He had the house built here. However, currently only Kamakshamma is experiencing
that solitude. She did not ask for that solitude yet she got it. That is how the life is. One person
wishes for it. Another person gets it without asking for it. One may need it, yet it becomes
unavoidable.

When Kamakshamma came to this home first, she used to say to her husband, “Your business
is in the city day in and day out. Why live here?” Sundara Rao did not listen to her plea. He
would reply, “How can you get this solitude and peace in that city?” He leaves home while it is
still dark and returns after the sun has gone down. Only he should know what kind of solitude
and peace he is enjoying. Kamakshamma does not understand it yet she says nothing about it.
At first, when Sundara Rao had the house built, he and the two servants, the cook and
Sankaram, were living there. Even then, his schedule was the same—leaving in the morning and
returning in the evening. After two years, a thought occurred to him. He thought it would be nice
to have a thing called wife in this house. As soon as he got the idea, one of his friends
suggested Kamakshamma to him. He agreed.

Kamakshamma’s parents were ordinary people. Her father’s income was enough for food. There
was no desire to put aside some money, no hope that they would have some to put aside.
Kamakshamma was their only daughter. They had an unruly son. He ran away from home. The
parents bought no jewelry for Kamakshamma but raised her fondly. They put her through school
up to eighth class. In her younger days, the one wish that had not been fulfilled was wearing
jewelry. Nancharamma, who lived across from them, was Kamakshamma’s friend. Nancaramma
had jewelry, from head to foot. She used to be jealous of Kamakshamma’s golden complexion.
Kamakshamma would look at the jewelry on the dark skin of Nancaramma and wished she had
them—a wish she could never suppress. She would pester her mother for jewelry. Her mother
would reply, “How can we get jewelry for you? You may get them after you’ve grown up and got
married. Maybe, your in-laws will have ornaments made for you.” Therefore, in her mind, an
uncanny relationship between marriage and jewelry had developed ever since she was a child.
For that reason, she had no other choice but to wait for that moment. After Sundara Rao had
decided to marry Kamakshamma, mother said, “He looks fine, has good property too. They say
he has mango groves, fertile land, and some business. However, you are fifteen and he is thirty.
What do you think?”

Kamakshamma did not pay attention to anything her mother had said. She asked, “Will they give
me all the jewelry, from head to foot?”

Mother was surprised. “I don’t know. We did not ask. If we look for another groom, we will have
to pay dowry. You know we don’t have it,” mother muttered.

Kamakshamma was down. She was tense for three days. She had been waiting all these years
for what, marriage or ornaments? On the third day, the mediator-friend brought the news. He
said Sundara Rao had in his possession lots of jewelry, his mother’s. They all would be
transferred to Kamakshamma, no doubt. Kamakshamma’s face lit up. Mother suppressed all
her suspicions and smiled. The wedding was performed.

Kamakshamma did not think it odd as she stepped for the first time into this solitary home where
the parents-in-law and brothers were absent. Whatever environment we walk into feels right. We
get used to it. Kamakshamma has gotten used to the solitary life. Except on rare occasions, she
is not bothered by that loneliness. At home, she has no work. Servants take care of everything.
After she came here for the first time, she used to dress up every evening, comb her hair, and
put on all the jewelry of her mother-in-law. She would look at herself in the mirror again and
again and feel good about it. She would walk around in the garden, wait for her husband. Those
days passed by. It has been twelve years now. Still it is the same. The difference however is the
jewelry is not giving the same pleasure to her now. She puts them on as a matter of habit but
they feel heavy now. She does not feel like taking them off though. The attachments we invite
into our lives become heavy in course of time. Yet we cannot severe those ties since we have
gotten used to them.

In the evening, Sundara Rao brings a magazine as he comes home. After he is done with
bathing and eating, he buries his head in the paper for one hour, sitting on the porch facing the
garden. Kamakshamma rolls the pan leaves into parrot shapes and stacks them up. Sundara
Rao takes some. Kamakshamma sits there idly shredding the rest of the pan leaves and
glancing around. Nothing comes to mind for either of them to say. At the end, Kamakshamma
asks the same question as a matter of habit, “What is new in the city?” He continues to read the
paper as he replies, “What is there to say? Same as always.”

That is it. Silence prevails again. Kamakshamma says something again. She keeps talking
without expecting a response. “The jasmine vine has two sprouts.” “The red rose may bloom
tomorrow.” “The mango buds are falling to the ground, I wonder why.” “Ghosh! It rained so hard
earlier in the evening. The garden was nearly submerged. They say untimely rain is not good.”
She keeps talking this or that. He keeps saying “ha” and “ho” heedlessly. From the tone, we
cannot tell whether he is listening or not. At the end, he says, “Maybe there is some good
program on the radio. Why don’t you listen to that?”

That is the end of it. She gets up and goes in. In the bedroom, there is a battery-operated radio.
Kamakshamma turns it on. Sixty varieties of sounds burst forth. Amidst those sounds, she hears
a low-toned song. The terrible silence is broken in one big stroke. She finds comfort in the
thought that there is somebody. She falls asleep while thinking the same thing. He turns off the
radio when he comes into the room.

Yes, that is how the time passed by. In her life, there is no hope and no disappointment. No
overwhelming pleasure, no drowning grief. Her life has been a barely moving boat in a serene
river.

Only once the boat rocked. She felt a taste of the cool breeze. The withered branch sprouted.
She became alive. Kamakshamma laughed. That day the Sun was hot. It was about one o’clock
in the afternoon. Kamakshamma was taking a nap in the bedroom facing the garden. She, half-
asleep, heard a flutter in the front porch and was scared at first. Then she assumed that some
bird might have come from the garden into the verandah. She closed her eyes. There was the
flutter of the wings again from the verandah. She decided to go and see what it was. She saw a
parrot in five colors, perched on the railings. It was looking at Kamakshamma furtively. It was
gorgeously displaying several shades of red and yellow on its body between its wings and the
red nose. Kamakshamma had never seen such a beautiful bird before. She kept gazing at the
bird, and was enthralled by its beauty. The parrot tried to escape. It flapped the wings a little
and remained in the same place, looking at Kamakshamma pitiably.

The bird’s leg was broken. It could not move.

Kamakshamma was worried. She wondered, “Oh, no. What could have happened if a dog or a
cat had jumped on it?’ She called Sankaram, the gardener.

He picked up the bird easily. The bird did not object. Kamakshamma closed all the doors in her
room and kept the bird caringly. The wound on the bird’s leg healed in three days. In the
meantime, Kamakshamma had a cage brought from the city. The bird became a prisoner
permanently.

Kamakshamma got plenty to spend her time on now. Unwittingly, a bonding has taken place
between the two. Now she is busy, has no time for anything else. Each minute she is worried
what the bird might be doing. Is the cage clean for it? Has any cat entered the room? Did it eat
the chunks of fruit I put in the cage?—the same thoughts and concerns all the time. She named
it Chinnari. She is under the illusion that some day the bird will learn how to talk and chirp sweet
words. Fantasizing that, she kept chirping herself in front of the bird for hours on end. She is not
even aware how the time passed by. In the evenings, she used to walk around the garden,
holding the bird carefully so it would not fly away. Now she has plenty to talk about with her
husband also. She waits anxiously for her husband to come home. As soon as he is home, she
reports in a hurry all the day’s happenings: “Chinnari did not take milk, not even one mouthful.”
“Ate only two chunks of fruit.” “It escaped from the cage and went around in the room twice.
Luckily, the windowpanes were closed, or else.” “Chinnari is learning to speak. It is learning fast,
from me. This morning I said, ‘akka’ and it said ‘akka’ too.”

Like this, she keeps saying, some with sadness in her voice and others with great enthusiasm.
Sundara Rao also is listening with curiousity. Some kind of passion has swept her away. A
shade of it has crept on him too. So also the servants. The entire environment at home has
changed totally.

Kamakshamma’s heart has experienced the bliss for six months. Chinnari’s heart has agonized
over the imprisonment in the cage. Smiles danced on Kamakshamma’s face. Chinnari’s wings
beat up on the cagewires, got tired and let go of it.

That day, it rained heavily all afternoon. The rainwater seeped through the windowsills and filled
the room. The rain stopped in the evening. The sunrays glimmered through the wet leaves.
Kamakshamma has the room wiped clean and opens the windowpanes to dry the room. She
talks to the bird. Opens the cage door and puts fruit chunks. She finishes eating and lies down
on the bed, waiting for her husband.

Sundara Rao has not arrived for a very long time. While thinking, she dozes off. Sundara Rao
comes late and decides not to wake her up.

The next morning, Kamakshamma looks lazily at the bed next to hers. Sundara Rao is asleep.
Turns to the cage. Chinnari is not there. The cage is empty. Kamakshamma jumps out of the
bed and looks again. The cage door is open. The windowpanes, opened last night, are also
open.

Grief overtakes Kamakshamma. What happened to the parrot? Probably, after opening the door
last night, she forgot to close? Is it possible the bird flew away? Or, the cat came through the
window and took it away? She shivered head to foot with panic. She calls the servants and asks
them. They know nothing. They are also surprised to see the empty cage. Worried, they search
the entire garden and do not find it. Not knowing what else they can do, they give up. They tell
Sundara Rao as soon as he woke up. He says, “ayyo" and leave it at that. Six months back
there was no parrot. There is no telling where it came from and why. Now again, we do not know
where it went. There is no way of knowing it.

Kamakshamma stares at the empty cage and goes into a fit of sobs. Sundara Rao says, “Are
you crazy?” Sankaram put away the cage. That is all. After that, each gets busy with his or her
own chores. The cook starts cooking. The gardener gives water to the plants. Sundara Rao
gets busy so he will not miss his train. That is all. There is no sign of another life existing in that
house, none whatsoever. Kamakshamma sits there staring into the emptiness for a long time.
Nobody understands the bond she has developed with the parrot, or what she has gained and
lost in the process.

”I lost the buttons on my coat. Do you mind fixing them? It is getting late for my train,” Sundara
Rao says. Kamakshamma takes the coat without a word. That is all. After that, she never
mentions the Chinnari’s name again.

Several days pass by. The bare trees start sprouting. With the arrival of spring, without an
invitation, birds arrive into the garden chirping noisily. The aroma from the mango sprouts
pervades the entire garden. Kamakshamma’s heart wakes up once again. She feels peaceful as
she watches the birds chirping and flying all around in the garden.

The gardener notices that Kamakshamma is watching the garden zealously again after a very
long time. He approaches her and says, "See amma! So many birds came as soon as the
mango tree started sprouting. See how beautiful they are! If we hang the cage in the garden just
for a day, we will be able to catch a parrot. We can raise it."

Kamakshamma shudders. She says, "No, no. Do not do that. See how happy and free they are!
Let them live like that, happily. They come and go as they please. That makes me happy. I can
sit for any length of time, watching them. Aren’t they all ours? Why capture one bird, lock it up in
a cage and in the process invite trouble for ourselves? Needless bonding."

The gardener does not understand her comment.

The birds in the garden chirp merrily in unison.

(The Telugu original, paaripoyina cilaka, was originally published in the early 1960s.)