Autumn Kites

Tsering Norbu

Prof. David Bain

ENAM170 A

Autumn Kites It is the time to fly kites in the mellow autumn of Benares. Flying kites used to be one of my favorite things to do. I could stare at that piece of paper and split bamboo contraption for hours, guiding it nowhere in the sky until I could not separate it from the purple and bluish haze of the dusk. The haze could engulf any color, so you did not see the kites. After a few hours I used to return into the warmth and light of home. Ama would shout at me for staying out late and we would have dinner at the table. We used to have dinner in silence like we did at every meal. Pala would tell her how good the food tasted and, it was always true. I always had a thing for kites. I could just fly one for hours. Tugging at the string and guiding it nowhere in the wide open sky. Looking back at it, I think maybe I liked it because you just looked at the kite and thought about it. Nothing else mattered. You noticed the kite for what it was. The kite flew and when it vanished in the haze of the dusk, the only thing to remind you of its distant existence was the tug of the string against the wind. You tried to guide the kite in new directions. Into the safer patches of the sky where the wind was not too strong and where your kite did not spin out of control. I faintly remember the shimmering sound of the foliage in the wind and that warm and earthy smell of roasting peanuts. Time used to just glide by because you had all the time in the world. The blue smoke rising from behind the walls that surrounded our university campus meant it was time to go home.

Tsering Norbu

Prof. David Bain

ENAM170 A

The first time I learnt to fly kites, autumn was setting in when the leaves were making a shimmering sound in the wind. I was with my friend Kalsang and we were thought to be too young to fly kites. We were really close, partly because we grew up together and partly because we were the only ones around. We were both born in 1986, went to the same school and were classmates. Our fathers worked for the university; it was a small one where everybody knew us. He was quiet while I was mischievous. But everybody loved us. I always got us into trouble - breaking windows while playing cricket or getting into fights at school. I used to steal lunch from my classmates. And all the Indian kids in our grade were scared of us because they thought we were Chinese and knew karate. It was a Sunday and like every Sunday I was let out by my mother at ten in the morning only after Kalsang came to request her to let us play. Somehow my mother was quite strict about letting me go outside. Now I realize that it was because we always returned very dirty, and in the days before washing machines, my mother did all the laundry by hand. I always promised that I would return back in good condition. Kalsang also promised that he will keep a watch over me. That Sunday we wanted to fly a kite after eating some slightly unripe guavas we got off the neighbor’s backyard by throwing stones at them. You never wanted to eat the ripe ones because they were too sweet and their insides had a thick yogurt-like consistency. The slightly unripe ones were a bit sour but gave a sweet-leafy, light after-taste. Plus they were juicy.

Tsering Norbu

Prof. David Bain

ENAM170 A

We did not have a kite and could not buy them in our neighborhood because the season had not started yet. So we went up to an elderly Tibetan monk who was a professor at the university; his apartment was on the same floor as Kalsang’s. We never called him by his name because he did not mind being called by his nickname; Abo Lulu – The Goofy Guy. I still remember him in his orange robes. He wore wooden sandals and big, brown horn-rimmed glasses that covered a third of his face. He knew how to make kites. After welcoming us, he gave us some candy and listened seriously to our problems. Abo Lulu, can you make us a patang? Kuchi, kuchi - please make us a kite. Our parents will not say anything. They don’t think we are disturbing you. Please. We got some old newspapers and some sticks of palm leaf broom; he had some rice-glue, and I managed to get a reel of string from my mother. Even though I don’t remember how he made it, I remember kneeling around the kite and watching him make it. In that early autumn sky the newspaper-kite was trying to fly. We were taking turns at running the kite into the wind, our heads turned around watching the kite soar and then slump down, again and again, into the grass. Now it seems that it was the excitement for flying a kite the first time that kept us running well into the afternoon. Eventually the kite did fly. The newspaper-kite flew high up above everything else. Bobbing up and down, as if it was riding waves of winds. Winds that took it everywhere in the sky. The tail always knew the direction of the wind. Following the wind kept us high; up there. We kept staring at it for a long time.

Tsering Norbu

Prof. David Bain

ENAM170 A

Tsering! Kalsang! Come home now! Taking turns at guiding the kite, each of us did what we wanted to do. Go against the wind, take it high, go with the wind, then bring it down low. We did all sorts of things, but making the kite go round and round was one of the hardest things to master. Useful to bring down other kites; this requires the ability to feel where your kite is going and how it plays to the wind. The string tells you everything and only the gurus at flying feel the secrets of the string. One such guru was Raju. He was our hero and our teacher, a tall and thin Indian kid who was much older. His father worked at the university as a janitor and had twelve kids. Being poor, Raju had rarely any money for kites, so he was happy to teach us how to fly. He could fly a kite without any wind; his moving hands pulled at the string, and stopped. After giving it some slack, he pulled it back again. Watching the guru at work, playing with the kite and disregarding the dictates of the wind, inspired us to be like him. Our parents were not very happy with us learning from him. Be careful when you are near him. Tsering, don’t let him fly your kite all the time. You should not play with those kids. But he was the guru and we, his pupils. We had to learn how to fly a kite. The reel of strings especially made for flying kites is called a Paraetaa, on which you reeled in your dori. The triangular hold that you gave the kites is called a kanni. The fate of your kite depended on how

Tsering Norbu

Prof. David Bain

ENAM170 A

well the kanni was done. You had to bend the spine of the kite towards the wind facing side – almost like a sail in reverse, so the kite glides over the wind. There were kite-poems that you would say to tease a girl. Patang bahut duur hai,

The kite is very far away,

magar dori mere paas hai.

But the string is with me.

Ladki bahut duur hai,

The girl is very far away,

lekin, dil mere paas hai.

But her heart is with me.

We were the Masters of the skies and winds, Champions of the strings and the Lords of the Kites that fly against the winds. But things move on. You think of going back to the same old places and do the same old things with your same old friends, but somewhere there is a fear that it might not be the same. It feels like looking at yourself in a picture; you are there but in a distant detached way. Nothing has changed and yet it does not feel like what it used to be. Gradually with time you start to go against the dictates of the wind just like the gurus. But you never quite make it because only they know the secret of the strings. I don’t know what has happened to Raju. Maybe he has become a janitor like his father, but he must be still teaching kids how to fly. I have not flown kites in a long time now and have not seen Kalsang in six years. He is going to college in India and I in Vermont. The skies

Tsering Norbu

Prof. David Bain

ENAM170 A

here are clear in the fall but there are no kites. The winds here change all the time, bringing down with them the yellowed leaves and flowers of the summer, to be buried in the winter’s cold.