Not Me….

It is not me anymore….

Days are gone, I know

Ideas were a blessing in disguise, a boon.

Days are here, I know

Hints are a badger.

Days will come, I know

Proffers no more sprout….

It is not me anymore.

I was Him… The Kite Runner

The optimist pleasantly ponders how high his kite will fly; the pessimist woefully wonders how soon his kite will fall. (Quote by - William Arthur Ward)

Last night I got to see the world acclaimed movie ‘The Kite Runner’ after postponing forever to watch it only after I read the book (which never happened). Just loved the movie every bit of it. To actually know that the movie was shot in China and not in Afghanistan is itself hard to believe.

No no. No review of the movie here. All those childhood days spent by Amir and Hassan flying kites, brought back memories of my own childhood (as usual). I was transported back in time to the days when we had the kite flying season, the hot hot summers. My brother was a very avid Kite Flier and with me having to say, I was his Kite Runner. 

Being 5 years younger than him made him the BOSS and me him supporter. I wonder who in the world chose the summer days as the season for flying kites. May be its the time of the year when kids have enough time to make or buy ‘n’ number of those crazy kites and tan themselves to look like urchins.  I do not know how they make kites any where else in the world except how my brother and his friends make.

It is an art making kites that can actually fly. Lots of paper thin(???) scrap papers or polythene sheets, home made glue, newspapers, those thin sticks on the leaves of coconut trees, twine, spool, etc filled our small house’s living room. Most of the trial kites made were from newspapers. Forget about all that and listen to how these guys made me their slave during the kite season.

As in the movie, fellows did not just fly kites for the fun of it, it was mostly to cut the kites of others. So you see, we needed a lot of strategy in doing this. Core competency was in the twine that gets wound in the spool of the kite. I was like this Hutch puppy back then (literally) going around my brother the whole day during the vacations. So I was asked to help (??) with the processing of the twine. You have got to make a paste of some ingredients to apply on the twine, let it dry and then spool it up to the kite. Now, a non-kite flier could never guess what makes that yucky paste… it has powdered glass pieces, eggs, Maida (all purpose flour) and neem tree glue (the brown sticky thing secreted in the tree – the deeper the cut made in the tree, more sticky glue is obtained).  As a fan of my brother, I was honored with the job of powdering the glass pieces, getting the neem tree glue while its still sticky (am confused if we used this glue), make Maida paste in the right consistency. After all this is done, the experts break in the egg into this, apply it to the entire bundle of twine and the end product is what is called Maanja. I have no clue why its called so.

The maanja takes 2-3 days of preparing time before its gets attached to the Kite. The swing bars, push-up bars in the playground and the clothes line posts are used very effectively to dry this twine. No gloves those days… so polythene covers played the role. Role up 2-3 polythene bags to your hands and start working the maanja on the twine. After 3 days the cut-throat weapon of the Kites community is ready.

All the hardships vaporize in to thin air when we see our own kites soar up into the clouds like colorful hawks, out there to catch its prey. The kite flying competitions that we had with kids from neighboring colonies, foes turning into pals, sharing kite and maanja making secrets, all was fun. As soon as a kite was cut, me the Kite Runner for all of them on the ground & on the terrace shouting out, ‘I’ll get it, I’ll get it’ until I get it. I loved the funny, cute, wiggly tails that the different kites had. The sad part was, I always chased those kites and wanted them for myself, which never happened. The owners claimed it back :(

Unlike in Afghanistan, flying kites in not banned in the city where all this happened back then. But unfortunately,  summers for the kids now has no place for the Kites. Its more of video games and movies. I wish and hope the parents who had the fun and thrill of flying kites in their childhood encourage their children to cherish the taste of it.

New Year Resolution...

       To Take more photographs of The Bold, The Beautiful, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, The Friends, The Desperate Housewives, The Kite Runner, The Weddings, The Funerals, Children of Paradise, Children of a Lesser God, Party (Wedding) Crashers, The Animal, The Wild, The Road not Taken, A Bend in the Road, The Mystery and all other things that interest me... and did I miss A Breakfast at Tiffany's, A Life Less Ordinary, A Pretty Woman, A Roman Holiday...

So CHEESE :D

So Visit http://opticaltrance.blogspot.com/ to get a glimpse of my shots :)