By Vijay Phanshikar :
How beautifully
That kite soars up the sky
From the beggar’s hut.
- A haiku by Issa,
translated into English
from the original Japanese 
 
 Prose  

A UNIVERSAL symbolism of human aspiration -- the kite ! Flying a kite is every child’s eternal dream. And, why just a child’s; every adult, too, harbours the same dream -- in every geography, in every culture. It does not matter how rich -- or how poor -- you are, but you always harbour the dream of your kite soaring high up in the sky. The kite up their kissing the clouds, creating ripples in the placid blue sky -- occasionally dabbed by cotton-white clouds - - has so much poetry around its dancing persona! And so much of hope and so much of dreaming and so much of sheer bliss! The kite -- all kites -- have only one religion, of flying, of dancing on the air at the end of a thin thread probably miles long. So, the kite at the end of a rich man’s thread or a poor man’s tether has the same attributes, the same trappings -- and the same aspiration whose poeticism requires no words.

 

The flier of the kite may be standing on the terrace of a palatial mansion or in front of a beggar’s hut -- or with feet across a filth-carrying little open drain standing on mounds of garbage in the open space behind the house (like this scribe often did in childhood), the aim is common -- the kite must fly the highest on any given day, no matter the wind is ‘dead’ or the wind is rather too windy (so to say), too haughty ! If there is a crossing match between kites on a competition day, then the other kites look like fierce rivals. But on another non-competition days, all kites look wonderful -- the little, colourful blobs of paper dancing on the high winds, playing sort of hide-and-seek with one another. The kite has always had a great association with human imagination.

 

Benjamin Franklin (who later became President of the United States of America) used the kite up in the sky to prove that clouds carried electricity in their flossy entities. Film-makers often use the kite as a symbolism of so many human emotions to further the story they tell. And has not every child in the world painted kiteflying in his/her drawing book at least once ! True, kite-flying is a sport with its own rules and culture. Kite-flying is also an art, of course. But that art invariably converts the flier into sort of a pursuer of science of using the winds to his/her benefit -- so that the kite goes higher and higher -- until the thread on the reel is over and no more supply is forthcoming. Of course, kite-flying is a delicate business that rough hands cannot handle.

 

When the kite starts climbing up, when the winds start jostling with it, when they acquire speed of their own -- or they just fall suddenly -- what is required of a kite-flier is his/her cajoling skill. Cajole the kite softly, caress the thread lightly so that it carries the flier’s message several hundred feet up there so the little colourful blob understands the nuance. Yes, kite-flying is truly a very nuanced art !