Let me dig a kite out of my memory box that got flown in there when I was ten or twelve, way back in late 70s. The dusty village I grew up, now a town, would go mad to put their kites in the air for a good while before the onset of dreary monsoon that would turn the drab village into an island of sorts shortly thereafter. Getting one’s kite in the air gave the local boys a real swell of time. This time around, the air is swarmed with colorful kites of all shapes and sizes under the blue, like kettle of vultures hovering over a carcass. They fetch the thing made from a sheet of paper and bamboo skewer from across-the-border, India. The kites came in all sizes, small as a china dinner plate and big as an ear of an elephant. The rare one that stole the show and gave the owner a swell of pride and others envy of him had the size of a bamboo tray, one that rural women use to winnow husk from rice. This was an elephant in the herd of cows.

Though they came in myriad of color, art and design, their total physical properties were hardly anything more than a sheet of flimsy paper and a pair of bamboo skewers for the spars, tethered to a string line and the reel, essential anchor for flying and maneuvering them in the air.  But again, the joy they gave was boundless.

That was the way of flying kite down there.

And then, there was this battle of kites in the air which sent the kite flyers on a real high when their kites clashed with the neighboring kite and cut the rival’s kite away. For this occasion, kite-flyers would apply Manja (essential ingredients i.e. paste of tapioca sago, glass powder, lubricants and so on) to the string line to get them as sharp as a razor blade. The sharpest would rule the air, others sent flying down to the earth.

Then, there is a great bunch of kite runners who wouldn’t take eyes off clashing kites not for someone flying out of heaven down to earth. They give a wild run chasing after the cut off kite to the end of the earth knocking down or leaping over anything that came in their way. The kite-hunters’ passion is really something to behold when they go at it. They fly like a man possessed, conquer all barriers coming in their way, boundary walls with row of spikes on top, barbed-wire fence, and cactus grove, junkyard of rusting steel, fishpond, canal, rivers and what not!

Many a kite-runners end up with bleeding feet, peeled skin, broken ankles, bruised knee, torn clothes, at the end of the day. The risks don’t deter them from putting everything into winning this one rupee kite. The trophy is not about how much it would fetch, but the pride and glory it brings them upon winning it by fighting a cut-throat battle – jostling, pulling, shoving, yelling, barking, snarling, elbowing the other out of way, yanking the other to the feet, bringing the other down, and all sorts of rough ways and manners come into play.

This time it was the rare one, the bamboo tray size kite, out of the blue, off the string line, unbelievable to eyes, coming down lazily in rhythm with the air sweeping along the gentle air current, little way off my house. It flew over three boundary walls, nearly twice my height, and over the rice paddy stretching out as far as the eyes could see.

No sooner it came within the range of my vision than this reckless boy of eleven or twelve leapt to his feet, just like that, as though a cobra had slithered underneath his pant, don’t know what came over him, made a frightful mad rush, running wild for the bamboo tray size kite blown by the gentle wind with eyes on it. I, no doubt, had acted like an idiot, the crazy bastard. My feet that had suddenly gotten wings were as good as flying on the earth and my eyes miles from it on the kite gently moving across in the air. The eyes were anything but guide of my feet. I got over and got down all the three boundary walls one after the other, in no time, I don’t have a clue how I clawed my way up and down the walls, though. The final jump off the 7 feet tall third boundary wall was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. I landed on the rice paddy on my twisted feet that gave a nasty leg strain. Excruciating pain brought an end to my run for the kite, or otherwise I was close on it. There were couple of boys in the battle for it but they didn’t have a smart pace like me.

Where do I go from here with one hand grabbing the swollen ankle, grimacing at it with pain? I lifted eyes to take a look at the trophy which I had come so close and which now was beyond reach. The big, bamboo tray size kite, was still hovering in air less than hundred meter above rice paddy, bobbing up and down, reluctant to come down, swaying this way and that way. I cursed at my fate, spat abuse at half-a-dozen Gods that my mother spent her morning on, chanting mantra and ringing bell, swore like a trooper at men who built these boundary walls, and then, looked hungrily at the kite finding its way down to rice paddy with tearful eyes.

By now, there were men, boys and kids all turned up in hordes battling for the kite. They were screaming, yelling, pulling and shoving, jostling and arguing, elbowing the other out of way, one or two kids climbing over the shoulder of the big boys, others holding up torn branches of tree with thorns, yet others lifting their umbrella above their head to leverage it. They applied every trick in the book to outmaneuver their opponent.

Everyone ran here and there in anticipation of the spot the kite would run into while their eyes fastened on the kite.

I was the lone kid out of the fray licking my wounds eying the kite hungrily and the hordes jealously. There was no help for it. The injury had forced me to concede defeat.  I was thinking of an alibi to avoid sticks from my mother.

And then, something happened that never in my wildest dreams had I thought of.  A thing rustled, swishing past me, sweeping my shoulder. It happened to be the string line tethered to the kite about to land. I grabbed it without fumbling. The dead kite came alive, stood up erect in the air as I tugged at the string. The hordes gaped at the proud kite in sheer dismay. I had won the battle. I was the proud winner. The trophy was in my hand. I fought against the wind to control the trophy, for it was a huge kite wrestling with me, wild, not easily tamed. A boy of my acquaintance came to my help.

At this tender age an important lesson was hammered into my head. The kite was the teacher. The rice paddy was the classroom. I was the pupil. The lesson has lived with me this far against all the odds. I take it to my grave.

The lesson was, don’t follow the herd! You are always in the perfect place no matter where you end up! Your story will unfold before you right there. You are a pawn across the chessboard and not the player. Don’t f**k your head about the fingers that move the pawn. Take things as they come. Don’t question them! You goanna get everything that you are here for! Nothing will be taken from you that is yours! May your God bless you!