Free

When Garden of the Soul was first published, I wanted very much to read it—especially because it is a story book—but the end-of-semester pressure at school was so great that I didn't dare. Then came my oral exams. It was March before I returned to Garden of the Soul. The day after my exam I came home and picked up the book with a thrill. I read the first story, about a bird named Krishna. The bird grows tired of its cage and one day plays dead. When the owner opens the door of the cage to find out what has happened, the bird suddenly comes to life and flies—free. The story brought back a flood of memories about the blue and white parakeet my brother had as a child. It was a family pet adored by all, with free run of the house. My brother was home from school in those days, and so he was with the bird all day. He spent hours and hours trying to teach the parakeet to talk. The bird never did learn to talk, and so my brother called it "dumbbird." One day "dumbbird" rode outside of the house perched on the shoulder of a friend. For days little "dumbbird" sat in the tree in our yard. We all begged him to come back inside, but he never did. Like the bird in Garden of the Soul, he flew away. The story struck me so powerfully that I didn't read further that night. The next morning was Saturday. I went to "Runners Are Smilers" and, coming home, I opened the back gate. There on the bird feeder in the middle of the backyard was a lovely blue and white parakeet. I blinked, not believing my eyes, but the bird was real. As if that was not enough, in the afternoon a second parakeet joined the first one—both blue and white. The two were perfect twins and they lived for three days very happily in the backyard. Sulochana worried over their safety and she set out a brass cage with bird seed inside, but they never came into the cage. After three days they disappeared.

Saudamini (New York)