The Kite

Have you ever made a kite ..really I am asking one that could fly? These days you don't have to make kites you could buy one, in fact people would laugh at you if you tried to make one because they are available at any decent store; you could buy a simple colourful paper kite or an expensive plastic kite. I learned to make a kite from my Little Uncle; knowledge of which i tried to pass on to my Son many years later.

I don't know why but certain things especially concerning creative things were not encouraged in my house when I was a toddler that time and rightly so did not understand many a things. summer vacation was the ideal setting for my learning. vast expansive meadows unfettered freedom to roam around the country side, and more than anything else the august company of my Little Uncle who seemed to have magic hands;that could create anything and everything...I was proud of him..and proud of being his Associate in many a scientific Experiments. We made many kites(he made many);actually I was his assistant or you could call a resource manager managing things that were required for the immediate mission........a quality which I would refine as the years went by that is .....Accomplish Mission At Any Cost...

More often than not it would always start with me....I mean the idea that we should make a Kite...I would heap a world of praise on this Uncle of mine..(an art again I would master as years went by that would come handy)..and prime him up for the coming event ..Kite Making...the setting would be perfect...we would select a Day ...a day on which my father would be away on a two day camp; those days he went on camps knowledge of which was passed on by mom and uncles and aunts in a rather loud fashioned way by announcing it to any persons who would come to enquire about him at the doorstep. My Mother would walk up to the Door and tell the person enquiring that my father was away on a Camp....

I am not sure if I was really afraid of my father but it certainly gave us especially me ...the prankster... a lot of elbow room to do what I wanted to do , break open locked old trunks, steal some snacks from the kitchen..play for long hours late in to the evening (for today's kids read fridge).

so the first task for making a kite was to get a news paper;since all the newspapers were sold ( I don't know why but we still do it even now) they were at a premium. Of course the news papers then were not as colourful as they are now. As i said my task was to gather resources...so after a paper it was next mission to steal a cup of rice which we used as an instant gum...we dint have the modern day luxury of a gum stick or an adhesive...cooked rice was the best..only it left an awful smell in the hand once the job was done.

most difficult task was to manage a few coconut leaf sticks(sorry i don't know if I had expressed clearly). we had two options one was a difficult option two pluck a coconut leaf from the tree and rip open the green portion for the fresh stick in between ....the second option was to steal a few sticks from the coconut stick broom .
each option had a rather associated risk with it. Plucking a leaf was a challenge..with the physical risk of falling to ground while plucking ; not that we had to climb a tree to pluck...all we had to do was to climb the terrace and reach out for the coconut tree in the neighbours house. reaching out for the tender hands was a difficult task especially if you had to climb onto the rather narrow parapet wall on the terrace: those were different days ....when children were not supervised most of the day....you wee considered good if you knew your multiplication tables and did your home work...even if you pretended you did.
The second option of stealing a few sticks from the broom (kobbari cheepiri) was not actually a pleasant experience......Those were the days when my father worked as a government servant in remote villages...villages that dint have lights...and not even lavatories; of course it would a real difficult thing for kids of this generation to understand that..what with cozy bathtubs and sleek showers.
The latrines we had were kind of cleaned by a sweeper who came around noon and cleaned with a coconut broom . of course he brought his own broom , but the one broom we had was kept near the lavatory.....apart from making sure it was perfectly clean before I could pick up a few sticks. The risk was getting noticed especially from the prying eyes of my grandma and the risk of opening up the whole boom if I was found wanting in my skills to do this job rather cleanly.

so a newspaper and few sticks of coconut sticks , a cup of rice, having been obtained the next mission was to mange a blade. I can now proudly say that I was the only guy in the house who could be relied upon to get anything on the tiptoe...well it was not difficult for me to to pick up an used blade from my fathers razor from the toilet which was at a respectful distance from the main house.....afternoon was the ideal time when all the ladies including my granny were taking a good nap. of curse I would play with my dads razor...a razor he would use for many long years , one made in japan. the speciality of the razor as I discovered was that it had a small lever at the bottom of its handle which when turned opened the upper casing which house the blade.
The general rendezvous for our clandestine missions was the terrace...a place nobody visited except for removing the dried up clothes much later in the evening.

Having gathered all the resources I would watch in utter fascination as my little uncle who is barely elder to me by five years prepare the KITE....I would watch each detail with wondering eyes ; he had deft and skillful hands..I am sure he wouldn't mind if I revealed that he had soft silky hands much like a girls hands..,,what with having inherited the lovely complexion of my grandma. Cutting the newspaper by folding it in to a square was the first task and sticking up the coconut sticks with paper and rice gum at the perfect place by arching the coconut stick was the next skillful act. This having bean done and after drying for while he wet about tying the thread..which he would call SUTRAM..in Telugu:that I suppose was the trade secret of making a kite that could fly....for that he used his hands to measure distances with an opened hand and fingers. Making a long tail and decorating the kite was the next logical step...with this the Kite was almost done.....

Yet there was a hitch.....to fly it we would need a long twin thread. since we didn't have the luxury of pocket money we could never ever buy anything on our own. In those difficult days of financial crisis when my father was making both ends meet no unnecessary expenditure was encouraged......and all those activities which we otherwise now qualify as creative week ends in summer vacation camps were frowned down upon as a waste of time...a time rather well spent doing maths for the next session in school when the school reopened.

so the kite couldn't be flown because we dint have the TWINE....the task of managing the twine was left to me...from my fathers Office work which he did at home...long sheaves of papers(which were called ..TP3...(god knows what it meant)... that gave out a farmers tobacco produce tied up with a strong twine. I knew that there were spare bundles in an Almirah....on the top shelf...a place nobody not even my mom or my grown up uncles cloud lay their hands on. The little Resource Manager in me...would take the risk of pocketing one bundle without being noticed..the time and means of achieving that objective was purely my ingenuity...an after noon when everyone is taking a siesta...standing on the arms of a wooden chair to reach for the top shelf....on such occasions I realised that my adrenal would pump and I had this uncanny feeling of an unkown thrill..which I would realise later in life ...........a quality you could classify as RISK ADDICTION..

My uncle was a master in flying kites ...we would run to the long meadows at the end ofthe village...and he would fly the kite...in no time. I would be holding up the kite with my naughty but tiny hands waiting for the wind..when the wind rushed in the open meadows he would command ..leave..and off it would fly...much higher as he unwound the bundle of the twine....at the end of the day I would always wish we had more twine so that the kite could fly..higher...