My eyes used to take me till the horizon where a distant
tree met the marshy land. I could see people, though scarce in number and
outspread on the field, working as farmers for the crop…The crop that would
feed them and us. I witnessed how their hard work benefited us, they made
grains available for ourselves to buy. Then, I wondered that someday my hard
work would help others too.
Interlaced with their sweat, rain washed the land. They
ploughed and ploughed, till the land was ready to produce. In the uninterrupted
pelting of rain, maverick birds flew through the wind…Some flew against, while
some steered along with the wind. I felt
caged with all my defects in the small room at the roof, while children played
outside. It was water here and there, and everywhere.
I heard happiness. I saw it too. I saw secrecy in the
ambience where each one conspired for a productive tomorrow. Farmers, birds,
children, trees, and the God, they unified themselves below the pouring cloudy
sky. I felt caged, but they enjoyed. They enjoyed themselves to the fullest,
mocking me of the pitiful captivity I was in. Real chains were not necessary,
my own thoughts of my defects had made me a slave.
After clouds faded off slowly into the pitch black and while
the rain continued, a wise owl obliged me by resting at my window. I don’t
remember when my eyes closed and how I leapt into the house of a farmer. But
before I could have completed my play with their children, the owl woke me up. He said that he has
come to my rescue, to unchain me. ‘The key to your chains is in your point of
view’, he said.
The next day was different. I heard happiness and I saw it
too. But I became a part of the ambience now. Farmers, birds, children, trees,
me, and the God, everyone unified themselves below the pouring cloudy sky, and
we conspired for a productive tomorrow. The gloom of grey in surroundings was
changed, because my point of view was changed. Keys to the most endured locks
lie within us.
