A bird that forgets to fly.

 A BIRD THAT FORGETS TO FLY.......

 

A few days ago, as I was walking back from the library in the evening, I passed by a familiar shop on my way home. It was a bird shop, or at least that’s what it could be called. The sight of it always struck me—cages lined up, each holding a bird, and there were so many of them. I could count at least thirty or forty, all different shapes and sizes, though most of them appeared to be of the same kind—small, delicate creatures. The shop had been there for as long as I could remember, at least seven years now, and its presence was woven into the fabric of my daily life.

I remember one day, as I was walking past with my sister, she suddenly stopped and gazed at the birds. “What if they were all set free?” she asked, her voice filled with quiet curiosity.

I thought about it for a moment before answering. "Even then," I said slowly, "they would probably die. They don’t know how to fly anymore, and even if they did, they wouldn’t survive in this harsh city. It’s not the environment for them. They’ve been caged for so long, this is all they know. In a place like this, they’re meant to stay in their cages."

I remember giving her the same answer, word for word, years ago when I had asked my Nanaji about the birds kept in my Nani's house. It was a simple answer, one that made sense at the time.

But just a few days ago, as I crossed the road, something different caught my eye. It wasn’t the shop that caught my attention this time, but the birds themselves, perched in their cages. There was a shift in the way I looked at them—a kind of unsettling realization. It was a feeling I couldn’t shake. I didn’t know what to make of it yet, but something told me that the simple answer I had always given might not be enough anymore. Something had changed.

Across the road, directly opposite the bird shop, stood a row of houses. More than twenty families lived there—lower-middle-class families who had been settled in that area for as long as I could remember. The houses, though simple and modest, had a certain permanence to them, their stories written in the fading paint and worn-out doors.

What caught my attention most, however, was the girls who lived in those homes. They were young, their lives already mapped out for them in ways they could barely question. Most of them had attended the nearby government schools, but they were still deprived of quality education and guidance. There was no support for their dreams, no one to show them what was possible beyond their immediate surroundings.

By the time they reached sixteen or eighteen, they were expected to marry, no questions asked. Once married, their world became confined to the four walls of their homes, where their duties were limited to household chores and caring for children. There was no room for personal growth, no opportunity to develop any skills beyond the domestic sphere. They were caged, just like the birds across the street, bound by an invisible force that kept them from soaring beyond their circumstances.

And then it hit me with an unsettling clarity—the birds weren’t the only ones trapped in that kind of existence. These girls, too, were caged. Caged by their circumstances, by their society’s expectations, and by the lack of opportunities to shape their own futures. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the striking similarity. The birds in their cages, unable to fly, seemed to echo the lives of those girls—both groups, unknowingly bound by the same kind of captivity.

For the first time, I saw it not just as a matter of the birds’ confinement, but as something far bigger—an entire system that keeps certain lives caged, whether it’s a bird in a shop or a girl in a home, restricted by boundaries she never chose. And in that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder: how many others, like the birds and the girls, were meant to stay inside the invisible cages built around them?