The Gift of Flight

The Normal

My mother grew up in what could be considered a paradise. My grandparents had a large yard with chickens, ducks, a large aquarium with exotic fishes, beautifully cut hedges, three large mango trees on whose massive branches we created swings, a pond with tortoises and beautiful fishes with red flaming tails, a bunch of other fruit trees and fan-tailed pigeons. These pigeons were not caged. They were free to fly anywhere they wanted. In-fact, once a relative asked for a pair of pigeons, took them 30km to his house and released them in his yard. Both pigeons flew all the way back to my mothers house. Turns out, pigeons have a terrific homing signal that's aided by the Earth's magnetic field.

 "I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on earth. Then I ask myself the same question." - Harun Yahya

Each of these nuances that made up the little paradise, were a mirror of what each family member observed in other people's houses and wanted a copy of it for themselves. One such "showpiece" observed at somebody's house, was a large cage full of colorful Budgerigars (budgies). Many decades later, after moving to a city, mom told a neighbor about how she wished she had a few budgies during her childhood. Surprisingly, the neighbor lady actually purchased budgies in a cage and gifted them to us.

An unnecessary gift. Innocent lives in captivity, yearning to fly free.

The Oddities

Initially, when I purchased seeds for the budgies, it came in plastic jars of 1kg each. Later, I found out that other shops were selling packets of the same seeds at four times lesser the price. Then I found another shop that sold the same seeds at half the price of the other shops. It was only when I started weighing the packets, that I realized that many shops didn't actually give 1kg of seeds. It was 800 grams. When I took a portable weighing machine with me, they refused to have it weighed in front of them. One shopkeeper said that the weight of seeds I get, is dependent on my luck. It was then I realized what was going on. Once they sold us the birds, they knew we'd be dependent on them for the seeds. Even if they cheated customers, people would still continue buying the seeds without protesting. 

Budgies and many other birds were being bred in horrendous conditions. Overcrowded cages, sick birds, jerky transportation. The sellers don't seem to care.

The primary reason these birds have to go through such a life is because there are people willing to buy them. By buying, you aren't saving them from these conditions. You would just encourage the sellers to breed or capture more birds. Birds deserve a life that's better than this.

Even among the buyers, many aren't educated enough to know how to take care of birds. There are of course people who take excellent care of their birds, but many others don't know how to look up information. Many don't have the time to give them enough attention or clean the cages or give them some flight time.

My Thoughts

Our budgies had a good view of a neighboring garden that was frequented by plenty of other birds. Once, I saw one of the budgies peering into the garden, watching wild birds flying among the bushes. He raised both his wings a bit to fly, and disappointingly realized that he was in a cage. He lowered his wings and just continued staring out. Although I did allow them to fly around in my room, mom's lack of interest in taking care of them, the high amount of maintenance, the cheating by the stores and the sheer guilt of keeping flight-gifted creatures locked in a cage made me persuade mom to return the budgies back to the store.

We'd have preferred to release them, but they can't survive on their own.

The Gift of Flight

I don't understand why people find this so difficult to understand. Would you ever take a child who is gifted with normal vision and blindfold the child for the rest of his/her life? Then why do we do this to birds? They have a gift that we yearn for...wings. The gift of flight. The gift of soaring through the skies with the wind in their face. The gift of flying as far as their heart wishes. This is a gift we steal from them. This is a gift we have no right to steal from them.

In my humble opinion, keeping birds in cages is a cruelty that should be stopped. Perhaps the only way to stop this, is to stop buying birds. A cat or a dog would be a better pet that could at least adjust a little, to a human lifestyle.

"You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life." - Rumi