Imaginch had this eerie feeling of being suffocated by an unwashed blanket. If he ever thought like this aloud, he would have been summarily court-martialed and sent to a solitary confinement cell. Why? His better half is a stickler for hygiene and except the structure of the house everything inside of it must get disinfected, drycleaned and irradiated by IR and UV for the heck of it. She is a martinet, holding a firing range and a boot camp on permanent lease, to punish non-compliance, be it a person or an inanimate object.
As he is scared of solitary confinement (he likes the freedom to move around) and afraid of the firing range (she never scored a bull’s eye in all practice sessions) and the boot camp (he is stamina deficient), he goes to a park or some such public place to air his views.
The elected or selected elders or youngsters, without gender discrimination, take to this toeing the party line very seriously. Not only they get to stage a walk out in protest against this or that but earn bonus points for adhering to their physician’s advice. As a small fee, they have to assume as if they are standing on the party’s plank and recite the party lines like parrots before walking out.
Imaginch is not worried about Netas toeing party lines, but he was concerned about parties willing to turn “double the Nelson’s eye’ on the happenings that affect the nation and stay focused with three eyes on their electoral prospects. “If Opposition is not for walk outs, then what is democracy?” a one liner he favoured and unsuccessfully tried to popularise it.
His mind was racing against his thoughts to spew out more one liner, parallelly thinking about selling them to willing political parties for use as their slogans during election times. Becoming prolific, he came up with “No publicity is like a walkout publicity.” “No win is like a walkout win”. “No order is like an order being expelled for disruption”.
What struck him odd was the elders sitting among youngsters and vice versa. Was it by design, to have young voices to vociferously protest and energetically walkout to allow the elders to catch their breath and trail behind to show their commitment & solidarity.?
Though immersed in his thoughts, the din a group of parrots were making did not escape his attention. The green winged and red beaked parrots stirred an imagery of the elders and youngsters engaged in heated debates as law makers! His mind started to look for similarities in the behaviour of humans and avians of interest to him.
He imagined that the parrots, in the wild or in captivity, would be communicating vital social, safety, and emotion related information with their flock members. Their context would be clear with specific vocal calls, regional dialects, and body language (he would love to watch one such performance!) aimed at maintaining social bonds and ensure survival of the flock.
Coming back to the elders and youngsters without gender difference, he did not strain his imagine much. The path followed by them mimicked, in toto, the parrots as far as the social bonds and their own welfare measures are concerned. The print media accounts and trolls in social media are validation enough for the above parallel drawn by him. He was sure that the body language of avians mostly might be benign (with one lark not making the summer type excuse) but when it comes to our elders and youngsters. While they vehemently agree to disagree (papers, mikes and wooden furnitures bearing the brunt) the same benign outcomes cannot be guaranteed. See, they are not averse to use their might to fight for their rights. Oops! He had missed to be the author of this powerful one liner!
When a parrot repeats some words what has it understood?
Parrots that are out of social contact with other parrots try to fill this gap by considering humans as their flock. They learn to use human speech and other familiar noises to interact with them. Often, they “practice” and perfect these sounds by talk to themselves or to other pets in the house. By mirroring the daily chatter of their human household, they adapt to their caged environment with as much comfort as possible. These parrots repeat exactly, what someone else has said about something or someone, without thinking and often in a mocking tone!
Imaginch expected a better behaviour from the elders and youngsters. But they have found a survival mantra in emulating the parrots. They repeat exactly what someone else has said about something or someone, often mockingly or without thinking. What the parrots did not have which these people have is the fall mechanism – misquoted, quoted out of context, work of unseen hands with gloves(foreign)or without gloves(local). When the political heat raises, the flock of the same feathers of elders and youngsters try to construct barricades, fortresses around the offender.
The caged parrot would like to have some of the freedoms these uncaged elders and youngsters enjoy. To roam and to invoke ‘slip of the tongue, quoted out of context or misrepresented or blame the involvement of one or two foreign hands. It could only wonder why for the same slip of the tongue, gets it jailed (caged) and these out of context wallahs get bails!
When they walk out, what is the issue and what they do?
Even if a parrot gets incredibly disappointed, frustrated, unhappy, overwhelmed with dislike or upset about a situation, it exercises its absolute right to "protest" and walk out or fly away refusing to interact. It protests with loud, screeching noise, raises the wings and lunges at the opponent. If it turns bitter and violent, the caged parrot could destroy toys, paper, or furniture by poking holes in the upholstery.
Imaginch was not surprised to read or watch a similar outburst from the elders and youngsters. The malady of following in the footstep of the parrots. Small disappointments, frustration or upset about issues, the elders and youngsters become “sick as a parrot” and promptly stage a walkout, knowing fully well that they could come back after a few minutes. If overwhelmed by frustration, they can tear papers, throw mikes all over and upend or break furnitures. After a brief suspension, come back to the benches or seats.
Unless the caged parrot has a political leaning, a walkout or destruction of property means, it would be the end of its story. This is the oceanic difference between the parrot’s unpaid-for walk outs (no party line to toe) and elders and youngsters staging their paid-for walk outs (fearing the noose of the party line)! Given the choice, the caged parrot also would happily toe a party line!
No comments:
Post a Comment