free bird

sometime between 1990-1992, we started raising budgerigars. these birds were locally called 'love birds' although i am not sure if the two terms can be used interchangeably.
we lived on the second floor of a rental house at the time and so the birds had to be housed in a big cage taking up most of our tiny balcony. my sister was in charge of cleaning the cage which is far worse than feeding etc. which i did gladly. we painted the cage a loud green. it was custom-made from the petrobangla work shop. one of the perks of belonging to the household of a man who worked for the government. even while he was callous and negligent, his job entitled his family to some fringe benefits.
our project was a minor success. we bred some albinos (all white) and lutinos (all yellow) which - as any budgie breeder knows - are quite rare. i named each of the birds. like any other kid, naming things was important to me. we had started out with a pair of them, and eventually, the flock grew to abt 11-12 birds. the first adam-eve pair were named 'magic' and 'mystic'. and for the longest time, we thought both were male, because of the lack of progeny (and because salesmen in bangladesh will say anything to sell you merchandise and esp. if you don't know a feather duster from a duck's ass). then one day there was an egg (in the clay pot we had tied high to one corner of the cage for nesting), and no end of joy in our expectant hearts. with meticulous attention from the parent birds, the egg hatched and we saw a scrawny, featherless creature about the size of a well... newly hatched bird baby. then began our speculation on what color the plumage would be. meanwhile, periodically, the chick would fall out of the nest and we would have to reinstate it in the warm confines of its clay-pot nest. some times when we thought it was underweight my mother would try to feed it herself. and on specially cold winter days we would blow dry it a little with the hair dryer. eventually the baby grew up to be a regular light green (the commonest of all) but we didn't care. it was our first baby bird. when it learned how to fly (from nest to food trough and back) we were more proud than it's by-now-nonchalant parents.

months later, after the flock had grown considerably in size, one day the cage door was left open by mistake. when we discovered the empty cage, the shock made us numb. we walked around the house all day in silence, not acknowldging what had happened. as if by not saying the words, we could undo the incident. towards evening, i went back to the balcony to check for one last time - hoping, praying for some kind of miracle. there they were - all but two of them - perched close enough for us to extend a hand and get them moved back home.

these birds were cage-raised and completely unprepared for a life in the wild. two of them may have even succumbed to attacks by hostile, cunning ravens and jack daws that rule the skies of dhaka. fortunately, the rest of them had realized that their safety lay in returning to the familiarity of confinement.

sometimes even birds don't know what to do with their freedom.

fat

once when i was about 13 years old, i happened to be walking down the dimly-lit main street in eskatonon with my father on our way to a video rental store. in those days we relied on vhs tapes for all entertainment, there was no satellite tv or playstation or gameboy. we would watch anything - be it in english, bangla, hindi, or urdu. each tape was a tk. 25 per day/week rental, depending on your membership.

so on this late summer night, there weren't too many rickshaws or vehicles around, probably because the city was freshly coming out of a hartal (country-wide strike). in a few minutes, some street urchins emerged behind us. boys - half naked and in bare feet - with their small eyes glinting in the yellow street lights. they walked in a pack. shoving and nudging each other till one boy said in almost a hoarse whisper: "motki" (bangla for "fatso"). they slowed their pace, ready to bolt if anyone gave them chase. but i was a 13 year old girl. motki at that. what could i do but walk on - mortified?
my father walked by my side, as if he had not heard a thing. when the boys saw no response or heard no rebuke, they picked up the pace and began chanting in unison - 5 or 6 of them - motki, motki, motki...
we walked for some minutes this way. the streets and buildings around me reverberating with the shrill cries, bearing witness to the fact that i was fat fat fat...
my father did not stop or turn around or look up once. he walked on defeated by a rag tag group of 7 year olds. defeated without having ever tried to defend his own child. fat or not.
eventually, a rickshaw pulled up next to us. perhaps the rickshaw wallah had observed the scene from a distance and taken pity on me - no matter how fat, i was still a child being publicly humiliated. silently, we got on and he pedalled us home.
whenever i come across the word "father", this is the first image that comes to mind.