Nelson Mandela, what it means to be free?

 Sunday, December 8, 2013
Nelson Mandela, what it means to be free?
Nelson Mandela, what it means to be free?
It is fitting to end my book with a real story.
It was as usual a dull Sunday and I finished day's quota of work and decided to have an early supper by seven p.m. and retire early. It was not the usual practice since, I go to bed very late specially on a Sunday. As usual our dog also realized the early break and sneaked under my bed, not yet ready for sleep.
I quickly glanced through the web and news and there was nothing except those world leaders who were clamoring to be at the funeral of our real hero, the freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela. 

It was all strange only after over 48 hours or so, our local papers woke up to the task of posting articles, in his name.
 

I in fact, made a comment under an editorial, querying whether our journalists were actually sleeping on this news item, 24 hours before.

I for some reason went down to the pantry and on my first step saw a little paddy bird stranded on the steps and trying to flee.
 

I quickly close the door of my bed room and made sure the dog is enclosed.
He would pounce on the intruder and even a little beetle is his play mate, knowing he will catch in a flash, not to kill but it's the natural instinct, would be deadly. 

 

Without much a do I caught the bird and quickly put it in a safety pen to be released in the morning. 

It was raining and the bird was wet and my guess was it was just out of the nest and was too little to be released in the night.
 

Yes, the paddy bird used to make nests in our roof top garden (it is no more and I am out of the country).

 

I showed it to all at home and covered the pen with a piece of cloths and switched off all the lights except the diode night light in my bed room and opened a book to read.
The pen was kept at a safe place close by so that I could hear any signs of panic. Surely it did not want to sleep but wanted to get out and was hitting his head on the sides and on the top. 

After half an hour I decided to take the pen to my bed room and took the covering cloth off so that it would not bash its head on the sides or on the top.
I watched it for a while it was relatively dry with all the attempts to escape from the prison it was in.
My gut feeling was fellow will be hypoglycemic by the next morning and won't be strong enough to fly to safety.
I decided to release it.
I took the pen to the balcony and opened the window on top to see whether it was smart enough to escape.
If it could not escape on 10 goes, I decided to call off the release till morning.
I had put lights on the balcony and nowhere else, so that the bird could orientate itself to the escape window.

In the fifth attempt, he found the exit window and in a flash disappeared into the darkness.

He was not a tiny tot.
My original guess was wrong.

We are admiring our hero, Nelson Mandela, right at this moment.
 

I wonder how many “thought moments” he had of thinking of his freedom for over 30 years.
 

My guess it is more than the current human population.
10 billion or more,I guess.

So it is imperative that all the human race should realize it and salute to him this week.
 

This message is especially for those tyrants in the making or those aspiring to be.