Here is a small snippet that I remember from the famous play
‘Gangaavatharana’ by ‘Rajendra Karanth’ which was staged at ‘Rangashankara’ and
which describes the life and works of Dr. Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre.
Bendre was a man whose wealth was stacked not in printed
paper used as currency but in printed paper which comprised of his plays and
poems. A small incident from his life is enough to give us a testimonial about
how well he had understood the different faces of life and how rich was his
philosophical thoughts even though he had seen the deepest trenches of poverty.
Bendre was taking a stroll one evening along with his best friend and they came
across a fortune teller who was using a parrot to tell a person’s future.
Bendre’s friend who had not seen this ever before was startled and curiosity
stopped him immediately; he stood by the fortune teller pulling Bendre along
with him and began to watch as to what happens. He observed that whenever a
customer came, the fortune teller would let out the parrot from its cage and
make it pick a card from the heap that was before it and the fortune teller
would take the card from its beak read it out to the customer. In the end the
customer would walk away with a happy and satisfied smile after leaving a few
rupees in the palm of the fortune teller. The friend still confused asked
Bendre as to whether he believed in this strange procedure in finding out one’s
future. Bendre looked at him, gave a smile and then put his arm across his
friend’s shoulder and began to explain. He said ‘’ Look my dear friend, I don’t
know whether what the card says will be the person’s future or not and I don’t
know whether the fortune teller has the mystic powers to predict a person’s
future but what I know for sure is something that would put your curiosity to
rest. You saw how the bird came out every single time to pick a card and you
also saw that it was not tethered to anything even though the bird was healthy
enough to fly away when it was allowed to come completely out of its cage. Now
the parrot comes out of its bondage and picks a card so that its owner will
give grains of rice whenever it does so and then it walks back into the cage
after giving the card. What you did not observe was that whenever the bird
comes out, it has the strength and the opportunity to fly away, to snatch its
freedom and to leave behind the world held within the metal cage. But did you
see the bird trying to fly away? Did it even give an attempt to flap its wings
and see if it can take off? No, it merely picked the card, ate the grains and went
back in. The bird was offered a chance to redeem its greatest gift of getting freedom
every single time it came out of the cage but choose to stay back in a small
cage where it gets fed though out the day. It chose a life of captivity and
comfort over a life of freedom and adventure even though its owner was ignorant
of the fact that the bird could fly away every time he let it out. If a bird
like this could not choose a life which any other captive bird could only dream
about, if a bird like this could not take chance into its own hands and choose
freedom over captivity.
If this bird is not capable of taking the right
decision for itself; do you really think it has the capability to pick the
right card to decide somebody’s future? “
Bendre looks at the parrot; gives a smile and walks away towards
the setting sun tapping his stick in a rhythm, his friend looks at the parrot
and then looks into the twilight sky when he hears a flock of birds chirping,
parakeets flying back to their nest. He sighs with gratitude.
