The little bird was looking
at her mother peevishly. “Come. Try once more…” the mother bird said.
The little one pushed herself
out, but just could jump for a few inches. “Don’t jump. You must fly… fly along
with the wind. T
here towards the east. where
the sun is bright.” The mother tried her best to motivate the younger one.
A number of members of the
family sitting in the different branches of the tree were watching curiously.
One of them said “She says
it is a new method of teaching. That will help the little one to move only in
the direction she wants and only to the extent she wants. She says that is the
kind of discipline she wants her little one to understand.”
Another said “Interesting.
We let our little ones to move around as they wanted. Of course, they fell down
a few times. But over a period of time they learnt to fly on their own accord.”
The third said “Listen. Our
kids are doing all that we have been doing. The same old thing. Flying a bit.
Sitting on a branch. Picking a worm here or there. Shouting now and then… but
she says that she would condition the thinking of her little one. Don’t you
think it is indeed an opportunity of making our society a homogenous one so
that everyone has the same ideas, same way of doing things…”
Laughed the fourth bird.
“hey! Imagine the freedom we enjoy to move around. Our parents never banned as
when we flied through storms or bathed in the rain. Our parents didn’t stop us
from discovering new forests, new trees and new fruits. But this little one is
just going to perch only where she has been trained to perch. There is no new
learning.”
“Learning?” questioned
another. “Nonsense… we will keep her a few tests on what flying is all about.
If she qualifies in them, then we will give her some work to do for us and by
the evening share with her some food we have collected.”
The little one was listening
to the conference silently. “Ridiculous! Everyone is deciding how I should fly
and where should I fly. They are killing my freedom.”
The mother could predict
what the little one was thinking about. “Oh, my beloved one! I am only giving a
gift what the most evolved species are adopting…They are sending their children
to a school… they have a common curriculum. They prescribe to their kids what
book they should read. They are not
allowed to read any other book except what is prescribed for them. Even the
weight of the books they should have is decided by the elders. When those
evolved species are following such a disciplined procedure, what is wrong if we
follow?”
“Mom. Can’t they complain to
someone?” asked the little one.
“Complain? To whom? It is their policy of making
everyone the same”
The little one looked at a
rainbow on the sky and said “Wow, their colours are different.”
“Mom, my wings are clipped”
complained the little one.
“What is your problem? Even
their wings are clipped. They are asked to learn what their elders want…”
“Are they happy, mom?” The
little one asked.
The mom replied “Their
parents are happy. Their elders are happy. What if the kids are not happy?”
The little one asked mom.
“Why should we follow them? Don’t we have our own brains?”
The birds from the different branches of the tree flew
towards the little one. “You are right” they said, “They removed the clippings
from the wings of the little one. Let us be ourselves.:
The little one flew away
happily to face the storms and the torpedoes.
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