You Don’t Know the Sky

I asked the bird to lend me wings. I longed to fly like her. Gracefully.

She tilted her head and said, “Wings won’t be of any use to you because you don’t know the sky.” And she flew away. Into the sky.

For a moment, I was offended. What arrogance! Does she think she owns the sky?

As I watched the bird soar effortlessly into the blue vastness, I began to see what she meant.

I wanted wings, not the flight. Like wanting freedom without the responsibility that comes with it.

The bird had earned her wings. Through storms, through hunger, through braving the odds.

She manoeuvred her way among the missiles that flew between invisible borders erected by us humans. She witnessed the macabre dance of death that brought down cities, laid waste a whole country. Wings are about more than flights.

How often have you perched on the stump of a massive tree brought down by a falling warhead and wept looking at the debris of civilisations?

The language of the sky is different from that of my species, I realised. I am yet to learn that language – its silences, its storms, its infinite invitations.

Flight is not merely grace. It is a profound vision and understanding. You cannot just borrow the grace just as you can’t borrow wisdom.

Wings have to grow, not be borrowed.

PS. This was inspired by a very short poem I read in a Malayalam weekly this morning. Written by P K Parakadav, the poem is below.