Dui Pakhi: The Unasked Question

The genius mind of Rabindranath Tagore produced countless masterpiece and ‘Dui Pakhi’ is widely known to be his second-best creation right after legendary ‘Gitanjali’. This short poem inspired many artists, writers, activists and philosophers around the world and is so relevant today. The poem holds its importance as it beautifully illustrates the contrasting individuality shackled to their circumstances and succumbed to their conformities.

The Illusion Of Choice.

In classic Tagore magnanimous style, birds are evaluating each other life and are constantly finding their own propitious. Even the songs they sing are under scrutiny and common ground cannot be reached. Only common thing about them is their intense young love for each other which Tagore portrays only to play twist with our emotions as he describes them struggling to touch and gather glance of each other across the cage.

Both the birds fail to have empathy for the other. The accident of birth is source of their present condition. From their perspective their own life conditions have merits, but they fail to acknowledge the merits of other.

Dream Vs Destiny In Dui Pakhi

The bird outside the cage, is probably not going to survive very long. Some predator will surely snatch him even if he survives weather or hunger. Probably he cannot fly very high in sky in first place as he is just a small bird or for the fear of predators. He sure is selfish to bring such peril to love of his life.

The one in cage is secure in survival part for she is going to die only of natural causes. But does this life serve her any meaning. She even lost the strength of her wings, melody of her songs and sight of high skies. The life she calls her own; it belongs to her master who captured her in exchange of money for his amusement. And she is happy to steal same from love of her life and make him inmate of the common golden cage.

The truth is none of their choices are truly their own and none of their values are absolute. This onerous illustration by Tagore is one of the many pillars of this masterpiece; the ‘Dui Pakhi’. We truly never get to choose our destiny but still believe the myth of freedom.

The Void In Master Piece

There is a question lingering in our unconscious realm as we awe at Tagore’s intricacies. We the readers have a tendency to declare one of them as ‘the lesser bird’. Mostly it is the one in golden cage. Describing her to be the one who is afraid of change, who sacrifice the sacrosanct ‘freedom of birds’. It is us who are not able to rise above the binary and cannot go beyond good and evil.

But still! The unasked question, did you ask it to yourself?

Which bird you would rather be if you get the absolute choice?

Remember the perils of unhinged freedom, the lawlessness of the raw nature. Remember the scant of security, the life of pseudo slave.

We fail to acknowledge existence of this question because there are no correct answers as long as we extricate from binaries and absolutes. World is the realms of compromises, contradictions and all shades of sinister and divine.

Dissemination Of Dui Pakhi

We as individual make choices among extremes directing out lives; risk or guarantee, adventure or stability, security or freedom, creativity or standardization and so on.

As we struggle to answer, what we shall reflect on is more than our privilege of freedom. This shall be the sustainability of freedom. We as a civilization has many tales promulgating that freedom was never free as our heroes and patriots of history have bleed.

The question shall be easy for a meager sparrow with limited freedom; teetering at bottom of food chain. And so shall be for the mighty eagle the apex predator of the skies. Truth is just like them we choose what we are able to sustain. And hence, we might feel like it’s us who made those choices and appear free, but in reality, it was our circumstances which have authority over our destiny.

Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.

Rabindranath Tagore

Scope Of Will Power 

Beyond the binary.

We are not the puppet of our circumstances; truth is we do have a degree of control. This quantum can increase as we train, evolve or innovate our individuality. We can increase our skills to have preferred career options, we can improve our network to have access to better opportunities, educate ourselves to be more proficient and so on.

Also Read: The shadow: A Guide to Abyss inside you

No matter where we start; we can set ourselves in the position to control our circumstances; may be a very little, or be just enough. To the one who are in deprivation of even the basic human enmities, a small push from humanity can go a long way.

With enough willpower, resources, discipline and time; we can become the mighty eagle form the meager sparrow who can own the sky. Freedom is never free; it has always been earned.

Solution of Dui Pakhi

For both our birds of Tagore’s Dui Pakhi, only if the duo get to culture empathy amongst them, evolve and their wings spread wide; they would never be bothered by any golden cage as they will be up riding the high skies, crafting their own golden nest.