The Caged Budgerigars

My eleven-year-old son Wasim slides his book bag from his shoulders and runs towards the new birdcage, his eyes brimming with excitement.

“Thank you for these beautiful birds, Ammi,” he says.

“Glad you like them,” I ruffle his hair.

He peers at the silent birds, then scrolls through my phone and reads, “These birds are budgerigars, not parrots. The one with the brown spot above its beak is the male, and the other is the female.” He furrows his brow to think hard. “We’ll call them Raja and Rani. Okay?”

I smile and ruffle his hair. “Yes. Whatever you say.”

Wasim asked for winged pets on his birthday because Salman next door has a talking parrot. I inquired in the neighborhood and found the number of a local bird dealer. This young man with a long scar on his right cheek and a silver earring dangling from his left lobe brought me two birds—yellow-green as ripening mangoes.

“This pot is for nesting when the birds are ready.” The earringed man pointed to the clay pot, open on one side, hanging in the center of the slatted cage. His eyes drilled into mine as I pulled the dupatta over my head for modesty. “Don’t disturb them when they’re in there.”

After a week of making video clips and feeding bajra seeds to the birds, Wasim’s interest fades. The budgerigars become my companions. They watch me as I roll out rotis and serve them hot for my husband before he leaves for his carpenter shop. Not a word is said between us. After having Wasim, I had two miscarriages followed by a stillbirth. Now, my husband doesn’t talk to me, doesn’t take me out, doesn’t reach his arm to find me in bed.

“You should thank Allah that the man hasn’t brought home a new wife,” my mother says when I complain to her over the phone.

 I try to teach the birds to say, “Allah, Muhammad,” as Salman’s parrot does before launching into a litany of “sister fucker, mother fucker, dog fucker,”—words it has picked up from rotten-mouthed ruffians roaming the alleys of our neighborhood. Wasim tells me that the budgerigars can’t mimic human language; they are different from parrots.

After a month of hopping around the cage, the birds sequester themselves in the nesting pot. I remember the earringed man’s words. Rani might be ready to lay eggs. I feel a sting of envy as Raja swoops down to the feeding bowl and brings seeds and nuts to Rani, feeding her lovingly with his beak.

One morning, I find Rani lying on the cage floor with Raja squawking and flapping around her. “Her egg might be stuck,” Wasim reads from my phone before leaving for school.

I remember the painful clenching of my abdomen when the midwife fed me a bitter potion to induce the stillbirth. Putting my petty envy aside, I embark on helping this budgerigar mother. I call the earringed man. He mixes a pill in the birds’ water bowl with his veiny hands, the hawk tattoo on his arm peeking from his short sleeves.

“This will ease her out,” he says, eyeing my cleavage through the neckline of my kameez. Although his gesture is downright lewd, I enjoy the attention to my assets—still firm, having suckled only one child.

He caresses Rani’s head with his dirt-nailed finger wedged between the cage slats. After Raja drops the medicinal water into Rani’s beak, she’s back on her feet, tilting her head to look at the man with grateful eyes.

“Good girl, brave girl,” the earringed man says, exhaling with relief. “Once she lays the eggs, they’ll take 21 days to hatch.” He presses a hand on my shoulder, his armpits reeking of cheap perfume, his clothes soiled with bird excrement. “Don’t worry, call me anytime.”

Rani flies back into the nesting pot. Later, I see two pale eggs tucked under her. I mark the day on my calendar. Now, whenever Rani ventures out of the nesting pot, Raja pecks at her, commanding her to resume egg duty.  Male dominance prevails in all species. Yet, I don’t interfere. The budgerigars know better than me to care for the eggs.

I observe the nesting pot during the day, shine a flashlight at night to make sure the birds are alright, my ears waiting for the weak trill of a baby. It’s the 23rd day when I see the two eggs lying unguarded on the cage floor beside the water bowl. Raja and Rani are quiet in the nesting pot above, averting their eyes from the fragile ovals.

“These eggs are bad,” Wasim says, his fingers playing on my phone. “The parent birds have abandoned them.”

Birds know. I waited for the midwife to tell me after the baby’s movement inside me stopped for a week.

Guilt pricks my skin—the curse of my womb has rubbed onto the caged budgerigars. Their sad little faces peek out from the pot, their feathers puffed up, their beaks clamped shut. One in grief, they stare into a common nothingness. I try to lure them out with a sprig of fresh coriander—something they used to fight over—but they don’t budge.

I mop the floor, dust the furniture, and scrub the dishes to take my mind off. Yet, the pain overpowers me, flings me on the floor, curled up, my knees touching my elbows. The abandoned eggs stare at me accusingly.

I pick up the phone to call my mother but pause, doubt that she’ll be any comfort.

The alleys outside seem uncharacteristically quiet. No vegetable vendors or fake pashmina peddlers screaming their wares. No children fighting over torn kites. No ruffians guffawing or cussing.

Next door Salman’s bird breaks the ominous silence, “Fuck the world, fuck everyone.”

I rise from the floor and swipe away my mother’s number. My fingers scroll and find “Earringed Man” in the contacts list and press call.

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Ⓒ Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar