The Parrot’s Tale
Once there was a parrot. It was an illiterate parrot. It sang its heart out, and did not read the shaastras. It pranced about, revelled in flight, and had absolutely no idea about social etiquette.
The king said, ‘ such a bird serves no useful purpose at all. On the other hand, it eats up all the wild berries of the forest, and hence hampers the fruit trade in the royal market.’
So the king summoned the prime minister and ordered, ‘educate that bird!’.
2
The king’s nephews were entrusted with the task of educating the bird.
The wise men of the kingdom sat and deliberated at length as to why the bird was so utterly barbaric, without any trace of civilization.
Their verdict was unanimous - the nest that the bird had built out of mere straw and twigs was incapable of containing much learning. Therefore the first priority was to construct a properly satisfactory cage.
This was a most welcome verdict, and the wise men happily departed with their fat pay-cheques.
3
The goldsmith was summoned to make the golden cage. The cage he made was such a marvel, that people came from far and wide to catch a glimpse of it. Some said, ‘this is the very acme of learning’. Others said, ‘whether any learning happens or not does not matter, but oh what a cage it is! How fortunate the bird is!’
The goldsmith’s money-purse was filled to the brim, and he immediately set off homewards with a fat smile on his lips.
The professors then set about trying to educate the bird. Inhaling deeply from their snuff-boxes, they said, ‘this is not the work of a few text books.’
So the royal nephews summoned the text-book writers. Since they were not very original, they furiously made copies and copies of copies of all the books they knew, and soon the pile had reached mountainous proportions. Everyone looked at that mountain of books with awestruck eyes and said, ‘Bravo. This is learning indeed’.
The copyists received such large sums for their labours that they needed huge bullocks to carry all the money. For the rest of their days, they lived in luxury.
The royal nephews were ever vigilant about the precious cage. It was constantly cleaned, polished, and the minutest damage was repaired instantly. Everyone said, ‘this is progress!’.
Naturally, such a large-scale project needed lots of officers, and even more supervisors. Their bank accounts kept getting fatter month by month, and they and their near and distant relatives soon had large houses to their names.
4
But there are many, many naysayers in the world. Some of them began to whisper, ‘the cage sure is prospering, but no one seems to know much about the bird.’ This reached the king’s ears, and so he called one of the nephews and said, ‘nephew! what is this that I hear?’
The nephew replied, ‘Sire! If you want the truth, ask the goldsmiths, the professors, the copyists, the officers, and the supervisors. The naysayers are merely jealous, for they don’t have enough to eat, hence they only go about criticizing others.’
The king, wise as he was, clearly understood the situation, and a golden necklace promptly adorned the nephew’s neck.
5
The king wished to see for himself how furiously the bird’s education was progressing, and hence he arrived with all his courtiers and hangers-on at the temple of learning.
As soon as he reached the gates, there was a tremendous cacophony of all sorts of musical instruments - conchshells and bells and drums and horns and trumpets and gongs and flutes and many others besides. The priests started chanting at the top of their voices and all the masons, goldsmiths, copyists, officers, supervisors and the royal nephews filled the skies singing the king’s praise. So impressed was the king with this, that he quite forgot about the bird, and was about to mount the royal elephant and turn back. However, one of the pesky naysayers had hidden himself behind a bush and from there he asked in a loud whisper, ‘Sire, did you manage to take a look at the bird?’
“Oh right!”, said the king, “I had almost forgotten about the bird.”
So he went back and told the professors, ‘ I want to inspect your educational methods.’
A demonstration was promptly arranged, and it pleased the king no end. The methodology was so much grander than the bird that it was hardly visible. It was clear to the king that the arrangements were faultless. There was no water or food in the cage. Only heaps and heaps of pages, torn from heaps and heaps of books, were being stuffed into the bird’s mouth with the tip of a pen. There was no room for the bird to even let out a cry, let alone a song. It was a most thrilling sight.
This time, before mounting the elephant, the king commanded the chief ear-boxer to properly box the ears of the naysayer.
6
As the days passed, the bird lost its wild ways and in keeping with the mores of genteel society, became half-dead. Its guardians realized that its prospects were quite hopeful. Yet, old habits die hard, especially bad habits, and the bird would stare at the morning sun and disgracefully flap its wings. In fact, one morning it was even discovered that it was trying to snap the rods of its cage with its shrivelled beak.‘What seditious behaviour!’, said the home minister. Promptly the blacksmith arrived with his bellows, hammer and fire. ‘Wham, wham!’ went his hammer. An unbreakable iron chain was forged, and the bird’s wings were chopped off to boot.
Members of the royal family made grave faces and said, ‘Not only are the birds of this kingdom unwise, but they are also ungrateful.’
Then the professors arrived en masse with a pen in one hand, and a pike in the other, and what they did could truly be called an education. The blacksmith's wealth increased so much that his wife could adorn herself with gold ornaments, and the home-minister was given a state honour.
7
The bird died. When - that no one could tell. The horrid naysayer spread the news that the bird was dead.
The king called the nephew and asked, ‘nephew, what is this I hear?’
The nephew replied, ‘Sire, the bird’s education is now complete.’
The king asked, ‘ does it hop about anymore?’
The nephew said, ‘heaven forbid!’
‘does it fly anymore?’
‘No’
‘Does it sing anymore?’
‘No’
‘Does it still whine when it is not fed?’
‘No’.
The king said, ‘bring the bird here. I would like to see it once.’
The bird was brought in. Along with it came the home-minister, the guards, the cavalrymen. The king poked and prodded the bird, but it did not make a single sound. Only the dry pages of the textbooks in its stomach made a rustling noise.
Outside, the blossoms of the forest sighed so languidly in the south wind of spring, that they made the very sky yearn.
Translated from Rabindranath Thakur’s Bengali short story “Totakaahini” by Arka Mukhopadhyay. © Arka Mukhopadhyay, 2011.
