Under the dense canopy of a concrete jungle, lives a sparrow. It knows not of the endless skies, for it lives caged in the grand mansion of its owner. Hatched inside the cage, all it knows is confined to the world that exists inside the glimmering metallic rails. Not even the sparrow’s thought, the wildest of its fancies, has ever touched the real world. The affluence of its owner has not spared the sparrow the need to want. All that it can possibly ask for has already been bestowed upon it with great exuberance. Its cage, plated with gold, stretches across several rooms. Filled with toy trees, fountains and streams, scented with earthly fragrances, plates filled with grains of every sort, bowls filled with plenty of ripe and juicy fruits, the cage resembles every possible conception of heaven on earth. All that the sparrow had to do was to live a life rejoicing the endless pleasures of its cage. In order to fend the bird off the feeling of isolation, the clever owner had placed several sparrow dolls in the tree branches. Not having met another sparrow all its life, the bird lived under a blissful delusion, bothered least by the inactivity of its companions in the cage. The bird assumed that they all lead a life without its knowing. The plentiful comforts of the sparrow’s paradisal reality made it seem absurd for it to question, to doubt the integrity of its world. Yet, deep down the sparrow has always felt that its heart seeks something else, its soul yearns to dwell in a world elsewhere. It did not take very long for the sparrow to learn to ignore this, to keep away from the deepest of its own desires.
On one of those days, after playing with the dancing waters of the fountains, the sparrow flew to the nearest fruit bowl, with hunger as an excuse for indulgence. As it did, it caught a glimpse of something, something radiant, something more beautiful than anything it had ever seen, or so it imagined, causing it to loose balance. It flew head straight into a juicy mango, its beak piercing into the depths of the fruit. Drenched in sweet pulp, it looked around, trying to spot the cause for its crash. The sparrow identified it immediately. A beautiful young sparrow was sitting on one of the tree branches. Our sparrow fell in love with it immediately. It felt that it had never seen a beauty of that kind ever before. Its stomach tickled and the sparrow felt a tremendous surge of joy and yearned to be closer to the beautiful bird.
Days passed, but not a moment without the sparrow thinking about the beautiful bird it had seen on the branch. The sparrow imagined multiple situations inside its head, of impressing the bird in their first meeting, but never did it muster up the courage to execute any one of it. It gathered fruits and grains from various bowls in the cage to offer the bird. Very soon, it had created a gallery of gifts, but never the occasion to offer it to the beloved bird. A strange feeling of shyness, shame mixed with fear and an inexplicable sense of resistance overcame the sparrow everytime it thought of speaking to the other bird.
One fine day, however, the sparrow decided to talk to the bird. It flew to the branch and sat next to the other sparrow. It waited for the bird to turn to its side and notice its presence. Hours passed, but the bird did not budge. The sparrow did not give up. It gently moved closer to the bird and stroked its body with its wings. To the utter horror of the sparrow, the bird fell to the ground and laid there motionlessness. Terrified, that its touch had killed the bird, the sparrow rushed to the ground. It turned its body around and checked for signs of life. The sparrow was shocked by what it saw. The bird laid there, eyes open, without the slightest change in expression. Its body felt unnaturally stiff and cold.
For the very first time, doubt crept into the mind of the sparrow. It felt the unprecedented impulsion to pursue it. Flapping its wings rapidly, it flew to every sparrow doll in the cage and tried examining them. But to its utter dismay, the sparrow made the daunting discovery that every other sparrow in the cage was fake. It realized that it was the only living creature in its entire world. The place that it had called home all this while suddenly felt hollow and terrifying. The clouds of cotton from the dolls were flying in the air. Several sparrow dolls stabbed open, were laying on the ground. The sight of all this terrified the sparrow. It did not know what to do and stood amidst all this, helplessly.
Gathering some hope and courage, the sparrow carefully moved across the cage, closely examining every detail. It struggled to grapple with the reality of things painfully gaping at it. It looked at every fruit bowl, the dancing waters in every fountain and was subsumed by the feeling that there was something about the order of all things that it was unable to understand. Yet, it continued its search, hoping that it would find something that will solve the mystery.
The sparrow flew to the top of tall fountain head in the middle of the cage. From there, it surveyed its world. The height gave it better vantage. It observed that there was a series of shining metallic poles on all sides, of what appeared to be the end of the world. It carefully looked at each pole and to its surprise found a few poles missing in one side of the cage. The owner of the sparrow had accidentally left the door of the cage open.
The sparrow quickly flew to the spot and found a gap in between the missing poles. It looked like a gateway to another world. The sparrow gently peeked into the gap. Its head peeped out of the cage. A sudden gush of wind swept across the vast hallway of the mansion and hit the face of the sparrow. It quickly fell back into the cage. It laid on the ground facing the roof of the cage.
The sparrow was in absolute disbelief to what had just happened. It had just had the glimpse of a world outside its own, seen something outside what it had considered till then to be the confines of its reality. The sparrow gathered its strength and stood upright. It stood there staring at the gap, not knowing what to do. For one moment, it wished that it mysteriously forgot what it had just seen. To stitch the new hole in the garment of its illusions for it to continue mimicking the truth. It knew that it was impossible. It had seen what it had seen. For sometime, the sparrow wondered if its senses and memory were tricking it. But truth was much more apparent and explicit than the lies that it had inhabited thus far.
All this while, it had lived inside the cage, believing that it was the only world, the only reality. Now that it had peeked into a world outside its own, what must it do? The sparrow knows nothing of the new world, except the fact it exists. Atleast, in the world that it already lives, there is certainty, the surety of existence and the guarantee of pleasure. There is no such certainty in the new world. Yet, it cannot continue living in its world, for it lacks something foundational - truth. Its pleasures are hollow and its reality is built on the foundation of lies. The very possibility, even if assumed, of a true world elsewhere will certainly disturb the sparrow and make it impossible for it to lead a normal life in its world.
What must the sparrow choose? The familiarity and comfort of illusions or the uncertainty of truth?
Not knowing what to do, the sparrow stood there, staring at the gate of the cage, helplessly alone.
