Posted on Leave a comment

We create our own cages

‘Appa, no parties, no temple, no air travel’- my children’s 

‘sit inside ‘ instruction to me.  It seems Corona Yakshi’s preferred breakfast is oldies like me and therefore, I should avoid going out. 

I looked around, gazed at the ceiling, walls, swimming pool, paintings on the wall and sang a couple of lines, from a Vallathol poetry :

ബന്ദുര കാഞ്ചന കൂട്ടിലാണെങ്കിലും 

ബന്ധനം ബന്ധനം തന്നെ പാരിൽ 

Roughly means-

You may be inside a cage made of gold, but cage is a cage. 

Many times, we create our own cages! 

Yes, we do! Many of our beliefs fall into this category. Many of our dislikes , contempt of men, materials and matters fall into this category.  

In the olden days, the forced self isolation was more prevent. 

This happened long ago.

A professor wakes up hearing knocks on the front door and opens it.  His eldest sister has arrived from a distant place by the  morning train.

His face should have bloomed as she was coming home after a long time. It didn’t. His face, in fact, shrunk. Reason-she was a widow and that day was Friday . The whole day he spent worrying about the calamities awaiting to pounce on him, due to the inauspicious thing happened in the morning. 

In the evening the sister asked him, ‘what is troubling you, my dear brother? Come on, open up your heart. I’m your eldest sister and if not to me with whom will you share your grievances?’

The fifty year old professor, placing his head on the lap of his sixty year old sister wept silently cursing himself for the devilish thoughts that overtook him in the morning. The sister who could not even imagine that her beloved brother would have despised her visit in the morning, sang a lullaby of their young days:

‘Omana thinkal kidavo, nalla

Komalathamara poovo?’

He could no more control his tears which flew down and wet the woman’s clothes. He got up and prostrated before the elderly woman without saying a word. 

He was happy that the load he was carrying in his heart could be unloaded  and she too was happy that her brother’s face brightened

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *