The First Flight

Have you ever tried to set a kite in a flight? Have you ever let your heart feel that redemption seeing something of your creation flying high in the sky? And have you had that feeling of a stab in your gut when the thread was cut and wriggling in the distant sky, a part of you faded away? Also, that adrenaline shot up chase to catch the cut loose kite and the relief that followed after you caught it. Or the despair that remained for days after you had lost one.

Those feelings are age-old. Of the times when old newspapers were uncommon in the home and something as insignificant as a roll of thread needed years of commitment for saving and preserving till the next season. This also involved lots of quarreling with siblings and cousins. But it was all worth it. All worth to see our hearts fly in the sky.

The first time I had seen a kite was in our primary school playground. A couple of guys standing there like wizards. Running around to catch the direction of the wind to set it in flight. That day, then a couple more, all I did was, sit there to watch the magic that unraveled. That surprised face of mine reminds of Pink Floyd’s Learning to fly- Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I.

See, making a kite is easy. Just two slender, flexible, dry mid-ribs of coconut leaf. A paper in the square shape of around one square feet area and some gum. Attach one mid-rib straight, diagonally. Other in a bow shape aligned across the other two corners of the paper. That’s all. The kite is ready. But the most important thing is the sutra, the knot that balances the weight of the kite. It decides the stability of the kite.

As I said earlier, in the era when paper and thread possessed some economic value, without a wailful cry in the home, buying them was difficult. Well, crying is a super-power of a kid, ain’t it? So I used it to make the ends meet. Then I found a guy in my locality who could help me in making the kite. He was a pro. Before noon that day he had pulled off the magic.

In the school playground, he stood holding the kite at one end. I stood at another. As he had instructed, I ran clutching the thread in one hand upon his signal. It took few tries but finally, it was a pleasure seeing it fly while I unrolled the thread from the roll. A few meters up in the sky seeing it fly in the blue background; thinking, what if it entered the cloud or a bird hit it or myriads of such anxious questions spinning in the head. The heat, the cold didn’t matter. Only the flow, standing there giving the thread a slight jerk to maintain the stability mattered.

It is one of such experience that always reminds me of a quote by the legend, Leonardo da Vinci, “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you will always long to learn.” Ain’t it right?