A Pure Bliss

To live happily is an inward power of the soul – Marcus Aurelius.
Hello friends, we all are well into the new year, moving diligently forward in the quest for inner peace, happiness and contentment. If we feel contented, more than half the battle is won. Stop chasing the mirage of happiness that every body,  nowadays tend to showcase, in the social media. The real happiness is what we feel in our heart and soul, by just being with someone, sharing a sense of togethesnes over a cup of tea in a cozy corner of the home. Or doing something you really love to do, it might be seeing a tomato ripen in your balcony tub or preparing a delicious recipe for your family or just cleaning out the clutter from the proverbial, ‘cupboard’, where we tend to store anything and everything. Does the world need to see how blissful we are? Sometime we forget to enjoy happiness in an ardent effort to prove the same to others. I will tell about the pure ecstasy, I recently felt when the bird flew away!

You may be wondering, birds are meant to fly, what’s so unique about it.But if the bird, a pigeon, to be precise, happenned to be an invalid one, then! Actually one day we received a phone call from our next door neighbor (phone being the convenient mode of communication even if the person lives barely a few steps away, such is the state of our social interactions!). He politely asked, whether we could take up a pet for few days as they were going out of station. I shivered with apprehensions, they have a very unruly dog as a pet. By putting all my curiosity to rest, he requested us to keep an injured pigeon for few days in their absence. The bird’s right wing was sprained by a football blow, finding it so, his son took it home to nurse it back to health. From the next morning the responsibility of the pigeon ‘s convalescence had been duely transferred to us.

In the beginning, whenever we opened the  basket to offer it food or water, it looked at us with huge terror in its eyes. Slowly it came to an understanding that no harm would be done to it’s self. By the second day, the bird was so comfortable with our hospitality that it started to make its usual cooing. It became a part of our daily lives. Each one of us doing the several round of the balcony to ascertain, the pigeon’s well-being.  In the three days time, our neighbor returned yet there was no sign of their taking the bird back. I was wondering about my next course of action, then in the sixth day’s morning I opened the old bedsheet cover to provide it’s breakfast and subsequently forgot to close it. No more than few moments have passed when my son cried out,”Mom, see the pigeon!”

With premonition engulfing my heart, I rushed to find out. It was sheer dumb struck moment for my entire family assembled there by then , the bird had come out of it’s sick ward on it’s own and now sitting at the top of the basket. We moved silently back, allowing the bird the much needed self confidence. Then it tentatively flapped it’s wing, a combined gasp released through our mouths. We waited patiently with bated breathe, all our morning chores forgotten. Then the bird crept away to the outer portion of the balcony. It waited, as if pondering over the next step. I was fearing that it might try to fly and fall down. Putting all our concern to rest, the bird eventually flew away and perched itself to the roof of the opposite building. We all gave a loud clap and hugged each other as if India had trounced Australia in a cricket match!

Friend, I just can’t describe the happiness and the satisfaction I felt on facilitating the freedom of another living being in our own miniscule way. It was indeed a pure bliss!
Have you ever felt it? Do share with us.

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