Tweet (2016)
Isa Kamari
We, human beings, like to think that we are unique; that everything that happens around us revolves for us and is about us. Maybe, just maybe, animals just like us, do indeed have a consciousness to aspire things in life. They, like us, have hierarchy and order in life. On top that that, they may want to have big dreams and long to be in an imagined place of bliss.
'Tweet' is a thin book which looks sarcastically at the goings-on at a bird park in Singapore. Concurrently, the story tells the conversation between a grandfather and grandson as well a purported communication among and between species of birds in the park.
At face value, the man-boy conversation may seem simple, it is laced with symbolism and philosophy of life. The birds too feel trapped in an environment so alien to their natural habitat. Even though the park promises to be right and fair to its inmates, the whole idea is just to create an aesthetically pleasing surrounding filling it up with pretty birds. Colourful birds are feted while man-defined 'ugly' and plain birds like the crows are shot down. Even though Nature has everything, the good, bad and ugly, people only want to see the watered-down version, minus warts and all; delightful to our visual gratification.
It is not that Man is doing a service to our avian friends. They have to sing for their supper, do stunts and things beyond what an average bird ever need to do in its lifetime. They say birds are free to fly in the park but why the enclosure. Do birds get emotional pressures that make them think that life is not worth living? Do birds actually think of paradise and harbours hopes of their Maker extraordinaire, like Simuk, in this story?
An enjoyable and fresh story that makes one think.
Isa KamariWe, human beings, like to think that we are unique; that everything that happens around us revolves for us and is about us. Maybe, just maybe, animals just like us, do indeed have a consciousness to aspire things in life. They, like us, have hierarchy and order in life. On top that that, they may want to have big dreams and long to be in an imagined place of bliss.
'Tweet' is a thin book which looks sarcastically at the goings-on at a bird park in Singapore. Concurrently, the story tells the conversation between a grandfather and grandson as well a purported communication among and between species of birds in the park.
At face value, the man-boy conversation may seem simple, it is laced with symbolism and philosophy of life. The birds too feel trapped in an environment so alien to their natural habitat. Even though the park promises to be right and fair to its inmates, the whole idea is just to create an aesthetically pleasing surrounding filling it up with pretty birds. Colourful birds are feted while man-defined 'ugly' and plain birds like the crows are shot down. Even though Nature has everything, the good, bad and ugly, people only want to see the watered-down version, minus warts and all; delightful to our visual gratification.
It is not that Man is doing a service to our avian friends. They have to sing for their supper, do stunts and things beyond what an average bird ever need to do in its lifetime. They say birds are free to fly in the park but why the enclosure. Do birds get emotional pressures that make them think that life is not worth living? Do birds actually think of paradise and harbours hopes of their Maker extraordinaire, like Simuk, in this story?
An enjoyable and fresh story that makes one think.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
