The Prisoner

The Two Cages

In my father’s garden there are two cages. In one is a lion, which my father’s slaves brought from the desert of Ninavah; in the other is a songless sparrow. Every day at dawn the sparrow calls to the lion, “Good morrow to thee, brother prisoner.”            ...     Khalil Gibran

        Zoo though I don’t despise is not a favourite place for me to visit for I firmly believe in freedom. It is as essential as breathing. We all aspire for freedom but strangely we don’t appreciate it when get it easily but if we lose and realize what we have lost our body and soul unleash a struggle unique in its own character against the known-unknown power that sealed the freedom. It is an instinct, untaught, so natural in character that if we try curbing the freedom of a baby who is unmindful of his place in the society reacts spontaneously, resists the attack on freedom. In the zoo such a beautiful gift is denied to royal beauties like lions, tigers. They might roar in zoo but it is a roar muffled by lost freedom. But I still visit occasionally if opportunity comes when in a city that resides a zoo. For where else I would be able to watch the grandeur of King Cobra. The beautiful bio diversity of the world can only be showcased in zoo but still cage irritates me. There are great attempts to provide limited freedom but truth is the cage remains. All the necessities and justifications apart the poignant truth is the cage remains.

          Lions, tigers, leopards, baboons, King cobras in fact have everything easy food, better protection from humans whose greed has driven them to extinction, prompt medical treatment which otherwise is missing in their natural habitat. All this and more … name, fame and attention of visitors but at what cost?...  Freedom. For some it’s just the cost of survival. Do they know what humans’ have done to them? They may not but do we ever realize it. They are driven to extinction and protected at the cost of freedom to showcase natures’ brilliance in a concrete jungle. We destroy their natural habitat and create artificial look alike to display their beauty. Once in they hardly have any choice, unfortunately some are born prisoners.

           It is a beautiful place, an artificial one but safe. What this has done to them? To mighty lion, magnificent tiger, beautiful leopard and those innocent deer and other small little creatures … what this zoo has done? It has given them the unwanted common platform to live the rest of their lives. They are all prisoners. As in the few lines story by Khalil  Gibran lion may still be mighty, tiger may still have retained wild beauty but they are prisoners just as poor little songless sparrow. Tiny little love birds adorning wonderful colours have a thread in common with lions and tigers … they all are prisoners. The might of lion expressed through terrifying jaws and powerful claws is as blunt and harmless as horns of antelope. The mighty and the meek are same just prisoners. Then poor sparrow in the story unable to fly high calls the lion good morning brother. The brotherhood in the cage. All the prisoners are brothers, are on the same living platform of lost freedom. It’s a pity the powerful is as subjugated, as powerless as weak and small for all are equal in prison. They are brothers, they live with same agony and pain of losing the most precious gift ‘Born free’, provided they realize it.

         We the homosapiens are born free, enjoy freedom and equally enjoy killing the freedom of others. More than any living animal we know, understand and cherish freedom. We all hate prison; the cage we never wish to enter into for once in the long struggle begins to get back the lost freedom. A free man, free to live, free to think, free to enjoy freedom is what we all aspire. But are we really free? Thinking freely, living freely …????? We actually live in fear of all kinds from failure to loss of fame to loss of money to death, all contribute to our fear. The fear of failure, fear of loss of money, fear of future … and many more and the ultimate one of death dominate our psyche so much so that our claim of thinking freely is ridiculous. We all think but not freely, we think under the shadow of our own fears. We live in the cage of our own fears. For whole life we struggle to conquer but apart from exceptional few we all face escalation of fears. The unseen cage decimates our freedom. Interestingly neither we realize that we are prisoners, that we  live in cages of our own fears nor we cherish being a free thinker.

            We are born free but don’t live freely. We build our own cages, the cages of religion, cast, colour, language and yes the strongest one of our own interests. Humanity is outside these cages. A born free is without cage but the all our life we build cages. The fun is we all seek pride in these cages, in fact we never appreciate the presence of the cages we build around us and denounce others on the inferiority of the cages they live in. What we all forget is till we cross this barrier we cannot embrace humanity to live freely. Realization of loss of freedom apart we like these cages, feel powerful in the cage but then a mighty lion and little sparrow, in the cage are no different, they are brothers. How strange it is, the animals don’t like cages, they struggle to be free but the most brilliant species, the humans likes cages, don’t mind sacrifice of freedom. Freedom you have then lion is with all his strength but if it is lost, he is no different from a sparrow, Khalil Gibran expresses it beautifully.   

           Bizarre it is indeed, in the zoo the animals lose freedom for man erects cages for them but the man himself is unmindful of the cages he has built around himself. Not just one but many more and still he considers himself free and conceive the animals as living in the cages. We don’t appreciate our own freedom, but we don’t let animals that hate cages, have their own. Freedom is not just physical, it is a condition of mind. A man with free mind cannot be caged but a man with a mind which is not free doesn’t need physical cage. He is a prisoner. The mighty and the meek are brothers once they lose freedom. Cage is not necessarily tangible always but cage is a cage, visible or invisible, once you are in the sparrow is free to call you good morning brother even if you are a mighty lion.

In the zoo I see animal in just one visible cage watched by another with multiple self erected invisible cages.     

"Good morning brother", said a songless sparrow.

                                 I was left with no choice but to say "Good morning".

                                                            Do you have?