Oh, if I were a bird! As a little bird-maybe a nightin­gale or an innocent dove-if I were born on this earth, I would have been very happy. As a nightingale, I would be adored by the people for my sweet songs. I would have built my tiny nest on the top branch of a tree.

My nest would give shelter to me and my brethren. From the top of the tree, I could see the greenery of the fields, the flowing rivers and the far horizon. In a storm, my nest would be swung to and fro, without being detached from the tree. I would pass my life, living in that nest in summer, monsoon, or winter.

A free bird I would have been, without any burden of thought or tension like that of the human beings. I would fly to any part of the world, and watch various lands and people and their way of life, their joys and sorrows, their failures and successes.

From high in the sky, I would watch the broad river flowing like a thin stream, and a stream like a line of white thread, and on the railway lines the wagons and compartments like match-boxes, and also the trees and fields jn reduced sizes, as are drawn on the pages of a picture book. After landing on the ground, I would settle on a tree pear a park in order to watch downward the innocent chil­dren playing gaily on the green lawn.

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A bird with two strong wings, some day I could fly to a fairy land and see many strange things that I cannot even imagine now. As an aero plane flies to distant lands, or as the migratory birds cross the oceans and mountains every year to reach distant lands to settle there temporarily, I would have also travelled to an unknown land and migrate there for a Couple of months along with other species of birds which are rare in my native land. That would have been, no doubt, a strange experience for me.

As a human being in this birth, I have very little scope to visit distant lands and meet new people and know how do they live and behave. But as a bird, it could be my sweet will to fly easily to any place I liked. My wings would carry me any where that my mind would desire.

As a nightingale, I would sing happily, when at night there was the full moon in the cloudless sky, and cool breeze blew creating soft waves on the faces of the paddy plants. I would sing to my heart’s content the song of life and joy in praise of this beautiful earth and of God.