Become free like a bird?

He felt a soft touch on his shoulder. No, he didn't really feel it.

And then it happened again. He dismissed it. Maybe a dry leaf falling off the tree.

There was a gentle tap on his shoulder. And then one more, a little firmer this time. He lifted his head and looked up, turning back and up over his right shoulder to see who it was. The startled expression on the face of the person, nudged him out of his daze. It did not bring him back to the present, he froze in that posture, just staring up at the face that was bent forward towards him.

He realised that he had been crying, his cheeks were wet with tears. His wrists, crossed over his knees, where he had been resting his head, were wet too. His vision was blurred,  he had removed his spectacles and placed them next to him, tears kept welling up, drenching and distorting the vision around him.

'What happened?' the alarmed colleague asked. A grown man in tears was not what he had expected to see. “is something wrong?“

Some questions, one answers in just a single sentence, in response to another person and the listener seems to understand it. And again, any number of explanations don't provide any consolation to one's self, the question remains unanswered. It was one of those situations. Only this time, he couldn't even come up with that one liner.

******

Humming a tune, a smile on his face, he passed by the place where it had happened the previous noon, the half a foot high footpath lining the driveway leading from the main entrance of the office building to the parking area. He stopped and looked back at the spot where he had felt crest fallen just twenty four hours back. Surprisingly, his world had not fallen apart, quite the opposite in fact, he felt buoyant. The future looked bright and full of hope. Also surprisingly, the situation had not changed at all since the previous day.

*******

His home was at the far end of the narrow passage between other peoples' homes. The front doors of all the houses opened out into this pathway that only allowed for two persons to walk along parallel to each other. The roof sheets extended beyond the front doors providing a cover for the entire length of the path. With about thirty, one or two roomed homes on both sides, the path was a fairly long one. The width of the passage offered the residents an unspoken familiarity with each other. Every one knew everything. It was both comforting and distressing at the same time.

He had lived there all his life. He had a few friends but not everyone in that lane was a friend. Walking towards his home in quick steps, with his head lowered was an unconscious habit he had developed over the years. And it was with the same gait, he headed towards home at the end of a working day, when he heard an unusual sound from the house just before his. Looking up, he saw, hooked to the roof near the doorway, a bird cage with a parrot inside. He turned away and knocked at his own front door.

He passed by that caged parrot every day, on his way to work and on the way back and every time he stepped out of or into his home for any other reason, the bright green making it impossible to not notice it. This one was rather quiet for a parrot, he noted unconsciously.

That parrot in it's rusty cage came up in his thoughts often, even when he was far from home, mostly during the day, when he would have parked his employer's car outside of the office or home and waiting for the next instruction. A bird was meant to fly, why did it allow itself to be caught and kept in a cage? Would the bird have wanted an easier life? As a prisoner, food and water would be placed in front of it and the cage cleaned out at suitable intervals. What more could it want? Was it the fault of the bird or the master that the bird would spend its life in the cage, never really having to use its wings? Was the bird happy to be there or did it feel helpless? Random purposeless thoughts rarely provide worthwhile answers. Nor was he looking for them.

Unlike his neighbour's pet, he considered himself a free bird. A man whose destiny was pre-ordained and it suited him to go along unquestioningly. Except for the ever increasing wants of city bred humans, his needs were met.

******

Caught up in memory, he rewound to a couple of decades ago, eighteen years to be precise. He had been a jobless, twenty something in despair. Brought up in a city that was far away from his city of origin and birth, he had never quite blended with the locals. As an adult, his appearance and speech pointed in the direction of his cultural beginnings. He was faced with an unwelcome attitude from the local community, who found migrants like him a threat to their jobs. A stance that had gained prevalence thanks to the  strongly voiced objections by the all powerful regional political party.

He had no education to speak of, no significant work experience to count on and no references to advance his job prospects. He had a driver's licence. It was his only claim to employability. He was looking for a job as a driver, preferably to a person who would not expect him to be on call twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. He was told time and again, that he was imagining the impossible, such a job did not exist. For a secure well paying job as a 'driver', he would have to apply to an organisation and be on call, ready to drive the designated vehicle to wherever he was told to, when ever required. That he was not willing to do.  His wife did not speak the local language and he had to be around to take care of his family. He had married a village girl and now had a young child to feed as well.

It happened one day, someone told someone else and so on...and somebody told him, that there was a senior executive living in one of the housing colonies close by who was looking for a driver, someone who would drive his personal car for his official and personal use. He had asked for details and reached the residence and landed the job. The job of his dreams. And he had worked as driver for the man ever since. It had never occurred to him to explore the world for other job opportunities. Life had set into a humdrum routine for as long back as he could remember. It not occur to him that life could change. There was no reason for it to.

*******

He was playing a game of Rummy with his colleagues – fellow drivers. It was what they did on weekdays around midday before lunch. Sitting cross legged in a comfortably spaced circle, one of them was distributing the playing cards, when one of the others, whispered to him 'your boss is coming this way'.

Visibly rattled, he looked up to see for himself. Instinctively, his right hand searched his shirt pocket and brought out his cell phone. There were three missed calls from his employer. How could he have not realised that? Was he so engrossed in the game and the banter that he had not felt the vibration or heard the ring? Guiltily, he sprung up and started to walk briskly in his direction. His hand had by now pulled out the car keys from his trouser pocket. As he neared, he started to apologise. 'I just wanted to speak with you' said his employer gently. 'I don't want to go anywhere'.

Together they moved out of the glare of the sun and to the shade of the banyan tree nearby. And his employer started to speak.

'I wanted to tell you this in person. Even before the office grapevine got the hint of it, and well before it gets announced officially'. Said his employer, the man he had depended on for his livelihood for the past eighteen years. The man he respected and looked up to. The man he took advice from, be it medical, financial or family matters. The one person he trusted implicitly.

“I have opted to take a sabbatical for six months. A 'Sabbatical' means going off on long leave without pay. At this senior level, it is likely to be fodder for the office gossip mills.”

“I have been working for thirty five years now” his employer said. “I am tired. I want to relax for a while and think about what else I want to do, apart from leading a life as a corporate employee.”

“It means, I will not be travelling to work everyday. It means, I will not need a driver. It means, you will need to look for another job.”

“The sabbatical is a month away. There is no rush, no hurry. No need to worry immediately. Take your time to think about what to do next – another job as a driver similar to this one or maybe buy a vehicle and run it as a private taxi.  You are young. You can try something new now. I will support you in whatever way I can.”

“For now keep this information to yourself. Nobody in the office or at our residential neighbourhood is really aware yet. Only my close family members know, of course. We can talk more as we travel home from work later in the evening.”

His employer slowly walked back into the office.

He did not remember having said anything in reply. The news had been broken to him gently and with sensitivity. He fully understood it as it was being said.

He stood there for a while, fidgeting with the car keys and then sat down on the footpath. He did not know when he had started to cry.

******

One of his neighbours had been sharing his new found independence and excitement with him these past few months. The guy had taken up an assignment with a leading app based taxi service and found himself earning far more than he would have as a regular driver and had been coaxing him to give it a try. By the time his boss left work, later in the evening and got into the car for the drive home, he was excited and eager to try something new! By the time he got home, he was raring to go ahead and lead a life that would be more invigorating!

******

He walked the narrow path leading to his home, chin held high and a spring in his stride. At his front door, he turned to look at the bird cage. It was empty, its small door ajar. That night, he did not tell his wife the devastating news, not wanting to alarm her.

******

The next morning he met his neighbour, the one with the bird cage without a bird now. “What happened to the bird?” He asked.

“Oh! It flew away! I had bought it hoping to let it free, so I never locked the door. The bird was so habituated to being locked, it did not even try to open the door! Yesterday I opened it a just a bit, so it would fly away. And it did.”

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Originally published in 2017