A Parrot’s Love — A Story of Freedom and Love
A parrot lived in Africa’s thick, green, leafy wild.
Feathers shimmered with ruby red, sapphire blue, and emerald green hues, blending seamlessly with its natural home’s beauty.
But it wasn’t only the parrot’s looks that mesmerized the forest — it had a voice as sweet as the tenderest flute, mimicking the rustling leaves, the creaking branches, and the wind’s gentle whisper.
But this parrot had something more; the parrots had hearts full of love for their partners, which were just as colourful and magical as they were.
The two parrots were joined at the hip. Their laughter reverberated through the foliage, mingling with the rainforest symphony.
They wished to soar together in the open sky, chase the sun and hide under the moon.
The two parrots then lived a happy life until the day their world was turned upside down.
Then, one fateful morning, a merchant entered the woods.
He was a broker of exotic birds searching for treasure to carry to his native India.
When he saw the bright parrot, he became transfixed.
“There is such a rare and beautiful creature,” he thought. Through trickery and deceit, the merchant ensnared one parrot in his trap.
No sooner had it entered the trap than it discovered that it had made its home in the smallest of cages, no longer held by knives but by the cruel bars of ownership.
The shopkeeper took the parrot with him, and the jungle fell quiet.
The parrot’s anguished cries rang in the ears of its mate, which flitted around in search of its beloved, unaware of its whereabouts.
The forest, once filled with cheer, felt pitch black and desolate.
The parrot’s new home was lavishly grand, and the people in the great palace marvelled at its beauty and mimicry.
The cage was made of gold and jewels and fed only the best fruits and nuts.
But none of the riches around it would heal the hurt in its heart, for it craved the forest, the sky, and mate.
Every song it sang was a lament, a wretched tune filled with love and unspeakable loss.
On seeing the bird’s sorrow, the merchant one day offered a single source of comfort.
He told the bird one day, “I am returning to Africa. Is there a message you want me to deliver to your mate?”
With a heavy heart, the bird replied, “I shall tell my mate that I have lived in a magnificent cage where I am well-taken care of and fed, but I miss the sky, the forest, and most of all, them.”
The merchant was true to his word. Once in the African forest, he shared the bird’s lament with its mate. The bird was perched at the top of the tree, and as the merchant narrated the captive bird’s words, the other bird’s eyes grew dim, and in silence, it closed its eyes, spread its wings, and fell to the ground, dead.
The merchant was speechless. He had believed that the bird would return to its mate. With a heavy heart, he returned to India and shared what had happened with the parrot in the cage.
At the merchant’s message, the bird’s eyes bulged with fear. It stood still, staring into nothingness, trying to distance itself from the delivered message.
But after a moment, it closed its eyes, spread its wings, and dropped to the bottom, just as lifeless as its mate.
The merchant, horrified, opened the cage to take out the parrot’s corpse. But once the cage door was unlatched, the parrot came to life. It opened up its wings, flew away, and in the sky, wide open, it finally felt free.
The merchant, startled, cried, “What was that just now? Why did you do that?”
The parrot, now the size of a speck against the azure sky, peered down and said, “My mate had sent me a message with its act.
It taught me that if I wanted to ‘really’ be free, I had to ‘die’ in this life of captivity. I needed to release the cage, the comforts, and my fear. I could live again only in dying to the life I had known.”
The merchant, lost in thought, followed the parrot until it vanished, and he had to return to his problems.
It was more than a story of love or loss, but of freedom — freedom from desires, fears and the gilded cages that bind us.
The biggest lessons sometimes come in the most minor acts of love.
