Bird at the Window - A curious life-experience (Short Story)

Today we are bringing you a story that is inspired by a real-life event. We will share with you a life-experience, that will force you to introspect how you help others.

In the India of 1990s, there used to be a lot of gangs, and underworld used to rule the roost in many large cities, including Mumbai. While many of the members of these gangs used to be locals, but some of them were from other countries too, for example from Iran, Afghanistan and even Australia.

This story revolves around one such Australian gang-member, Andy, who got arrested and was lodged in an Indian jail. He was charged under serious allegations of murder, gang-wars and other such crimes. He was sentenced to 7 years of rigurous imprisonment.

As is the case with dangerous gang-members, he was put in a solitary cell. That cell just had one window with iron bars, near the roof. He was allowed to go out and mix-up with others only once in a day, and that too only for half an hour.

Have you been alone for a long time in your life? It can get very tough pretty soon, and psychologically very stressful. It may drive you crazy, especially if you are an extrovert person.

Andy too started longing for some company after a few months in that prison cell. One day he saw a sparrow at the window. He observed that it used to come every other day in the afternoon, and sit at that window for sometime.

Andy made it a habit to place some of his food near the window. His hands did not use to reach the window, but he managed to throw some food there, in such a way that some of it used to land at the window.

Soon the bird made it a habit to come to that window to get that food, almost everyday. With time it even started to come within the cell and get the food that was there on the floor and on Andy’s bed.

Within a year that sparrow became Andy’s partner of solitude. The bird even started eating out of the palms of Andy. Andy started to take care of that bird, and used to look forward to their meeting everyday.

However, as fate had it, Andy was transferred to another cell one day. This made Andy anxious. Who will feed that little bird now?

So, he appraoched the prison-mate that was transferred to that cell. His name was Robert. Andy told him about the sparrow and asked him to take care of it. In the lunch time, Andy even gave some food to Robert to give it to the sparrow.

Next day, at lunchtime Robert came with something in his palms. He called Andy and showed him the sparrow. It was dead. He had tortured and killed that little bird. Andy was devastated and furious. He got into a fist fight with Robert. But guards and other prisoners intervined and stopped the brawl.

That night Andy wept a lot and thought a lot about his action of befriending that bird, and also regarding his decision of telling about that bird to Robert.

Winding Up

Was Andy in someway responsible for the death of that bird? Do we sometimes hurt or harm others, even though our intention is to help them?

Should we do something without thinking it through, without thinking about all pros and cons?

Let us know what you think about this. Have you experienced something like this, wherein you harmed someone unintentially, even though you wanted to help him or her? Or maybe someone did something good to you, but it ended up harming you in the long run!