Kargil-Kid-Kite

The summer of 1999, my 1st standard was completed. Though I was in a primary school of a village, my mom was serious about my studies and I had to go to school every day. And before the freedom of two months of holidays could pass by my cheeks, Kargil war got set in. The milieu in my home turned grave as my father was in the army. He had to go back before the completion of his holidays. Mom would cry and I could just watch. 

Though I knew what was going on, I couldn't understand the gravity of it. Home had become dull than before and that's why I got immersed in the cheap thrills of the gully. Of all the things that went around me, flying a kite was a fancy that was pending for a long while. I didn't know how to make a kite and definitely didn't know how to make one fly. Setting it in a flight was like a magic to me. I would think how something as mortal as that can fly just by a thread. And I always wanted to feel that excitement. 

In the retail stores, though the ready-made kites were available for a rupee. That time, a rupee in a kid's hand was worth more than an iPhone now. And even if I had managed to get a rupee, I was supposed to spend it with prior permission of my mom. She would think if she let's me spend money I'll be addicted to the eatables in the shops.

But you know, despite everything magic happens sometimes. The universe listens to those silent prayers and makes them true. As one random noon when I was sitting in the school ground waiting for my usual friends. An adrift kite was wriggling in air to make a landing. I ran towards it to get hold of it. It was beautiful. Green background, filled with a crescent moon and a star, in small boxes all over it. Of all the kites made out of newspaper, this one looked more elegant. Before someone came looking for it, I secretly went to some other place to play with it.

A piece of thread that was still left with it and I would run around to make it fly. It flied when I ran, then again it was down when I would stop. After repeated attempts to make it fly, I decided it might need more thread and I decided to ask for it from mom. Late in the evening when I went home, I told mom what I was blessed with in all excitement. Then I showed it to her in the kitchen. The moment she laid eyes on it she turned red and snatched it from me. In an angry tone she said, "Bloody crescents and stars" and crumbled it. Throwing it in a corner, she slapped me saying, "Your father is fighting there and you bring these nasty things". She was in tears and I started wailing.

In tears, looking at the crumpled ball of green that poked the sticks out of it I wondered, "the crescent moon is the same and the stars, what our ancestors had become". Why would mom do that…and I wailed.