The Green Parrot

In 1916, Poet Robert Frost published in his collection Mountain Interval, a poem named "The Road Not Taken". It ends with the following note

"...Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Currently, I am spending a good amount of time commuting between two cities. Like most of us, I rely on my iPod to keep the journey less boring. As most of you would have realized, shuffle feature is a good feature to surprise you with the next unexpected song from your playlist. But, it’s still your playlist that is being shuffled. I tried refreshing my playlist multiple times to make it sound new. But that option also turned sour after a while. I tried listening to sports radio that kept it interesting for a while then it also gave way. Tried listening to Hindi and Tamil online Radio, but the mobile network interruptions made it worse than listening to the same beat up songs from my playlist.

Of late, my mind has been making these short road trips escaping these same old songs in my car audio. My mind has been visiting those places in the past where I had to make a choice. Sometimes choose one over many options that were presented. More often than not, the road trip ended with sour feeling that I could have chosen another option and probably I might have done many things better in the days and years that followed. This aftertaste did not make these road trips a pleasant one.

One fine morning in my commute, my mind tricked me into believing that it is going on a different trip. But the places and scenes were similar to what I saw before. I was jogging through the memory looking at faces that brought a smile, places that brought a hearty laugh, situations that weighed heavy, conflicts that never got resolved, actions epitomized  stupidity, a prank ticked off a friend et al. But that’s when my mind took me to this point in my past where it shone the lights on the one thing that set in motion the rest of the things in my life. To present that one thing in a better fashion, I need to set the stage first. So a little backdrop here:

Till my 3rd Grade, I was in schools that did not have English as the medium of teaching. For Grade 4, I moved to a different school in a different city, primarily because of my dad's job related relocation. This new school had a system of co-educating boys and girls only till Grade 5. Beyond Grade 5 it was an "all girls" school. So I had to move out of this school and find a new one for Grade 6.

All these changes were not made or opted by me. They were forced on me due to factors that were beyond my control. 

So a decision was made to move me to a new school that was affiliated to my dad's employer. I went along with it as I had no choice. In this new school, I was subject to an entrance test. This whole entrance test concept was new to me and I have not faced anything like that before. The test was meant to evaluate my academic aptitude and command over the medium of instruction in this new school, English. I was asked to write a one page essay in English on a topic of my choice. It is needless to say that I had to do well in this test to get selected in this school.

I wrote an essay titled "The Green Parrot". I wrote about a Parrot I saw in a zoo during that summer holidays. I wrote about how green it was and what color the beak was and all the naive things one can write about a Parrot. But that essay did make the cut and got me the admission in that school. 

That place is where I found those individuals with whom I share a special bond with, to this date. That’s the place where I found teachers who helped me identify where my interest was. That's the place where I had the room to grow to the person I turned out to be. All the important individual in my life are so because of the decision I made to write "The Green Parrot". I don't know what would have happened had I written say "The Black Panther”. 

Whether it was by design or by default, I did make those choices. My parents did influence some of those decisions (due to the cultural aspect). But it was mostly up to me as to what I made out of those choices. My parents might have picked the school for me, but they did not pick who I sit next to. They did not pick who I lunch with. They did not pick whom I team up with in sports. I happened to do all that because of a certain Green Parrot I decided to write in a certain entrance test.

Green Parrot exercise is in a way contrary to the Road Not Taken. Idea is to not brood over what could have happened. But to appreciate what did happen and what was that one thing that made it happen so. 

I urge you to go find your Green Parrot... it will be an interesting journey as you would stumble upon some of the interesting things from your past, which you did not really cherish or reflect thus far.

Have a wonderful trip!