“Throw your dreams into space like a kite and you do not know what it will bring back ─ a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country”

─ Anais Nin (French-Cuban American essayist)

In the backdrop of the heinous RG Kar incident, people all over the world have seen and experienced many forms of protest both on and off the road. As the intensity of protests and demands for justice show no signs of waning till date, it is only likely that they will adopt new ways of expressing themselves and infiltrate all the seasonal activities and festivals. What happens, however, every year around the time of Viswakarma Puja is that the festive smell of autumn gradually grips the air and the mind gets ready for indulging in some pure and innocent joy matching the merry spirit of the season. And very few activities in this season can be as enjoyable as the delightful act of kite-flying. Come Sundays and holidays, and all the sky in different parts of the city and suburbs, even a few years ago, would be dotted with charming kites of innumerable colours, demonstrating stunning aerobatics in unbound ecstasy. But this year the mood is sombre. The tragic death of the young doctor has shattered everyone’s heart. Naturally, our anguish and agony will get mixed with everything we do at this time. Consequently, kites flying high with “We Want Justice” slogans are certain to be spotted all over the state in plenty, and the sight will neither be incongruous nor irrelevant given the fact that kites have often been flown as symbols of protest, revolt, and resistance or as a sign of solidarity. In 1927, during the Simon Commission protests, people wrote “Go Back Simon” on kites to register their protests against British rule. The pure pastime of flying kites then became a mode of protest against the injustice and tyranny of foreign rule. During a war on Gaza some time ago, flying kites were seen in the sky that symbolised hope and defiance. During the Naxalite movement in Bengal, people witnessed the sight of kites flying in the sky with revolutionary slogans. Kites themselves symbolise freedom and individuality as they fly high in the sky and without company. Down the ages, therefore, people have taken to it variously as a way of amusement, recreation, revolt, or resistance.

True, most youngsters today resort to smartphones and digital entertainment as easy modes of relaxing themselves from the stress and strains of modern life. But the ones who are still glued to this old form of outdoor enjoyment feel blessed to get real pleasure from the spool manoeuvring the electrifying vicissitudes of the flying object. Great is the joy of gradually loosening yards and yards of string from the “latai” (reel or spool), sending the paper dream higher and higher into the blue sky; but greater still is the joy of snapping the lifeline of a rival kite also striving for aerial supremacy. If the weather gods condescend to offer a blue sky, the impatient soul rushes outdoors with a spool in one hand and a kite or two in the other towards a relatively vacant space to launch his aerial mission. Even a couple of decades ago, when Kolkata and suburbs could boast of lumps of green here and there, the young kite-flyers would be seen scampering about those green stretches with their eyes firmly fixed to the sky. There was also a sizable portion of kite-players who would launch their ambitious project from the vantage point of their rooftops.

But gone are the heydays of kite flying in India and in some other countries. There are numerous factors behind the decline. A number of tragic incidents, government bans, both in India and elsewhere, the arrival of smartphones, and changing vagaries of time have put the ancient pastime of kite-flying in real trouble. In January this year, many people died in Rajasthan during the kite-flying festival amid the celebration of Makar Sankranti. Competitive kite flying, a popular custom during the festival, not only claims human lives but also kills hundreds of birds that get entangled in manja, a coating of powdered glass made to strengthen the kite string. In the same month, three persons, including a child, were killed in Gujarat after their throats got slit by the sharp kite strings during festivities in the state. Similar accidents have also occurred on Parama flyover in Kolkata in the not-so-distant past when bikers’ throats got slit by glass-coated Chinese strings of flying kites. The National Green Tribunal in 2016 imposed an interim nationwide ban on the use of glass-coated manja for flying kites as it was deemed dangerous for humans and avian creatures. Not only awareness and government action about hazardous use of manja that dealt a body blow to the energy and ardour of kite fliers and the manja industry, but other factors contribute equally to the rapid decline in the popularity and production of kites all over the country. If addiction to smartphones, especially on the part of youngsters, is a real threat to the pastime of kite-flying, the escalating cost of making and selling a kite is another reason for worry. The imposition of GST on kites, kite paper, and manja has brought anxiety to the faces and lives of people traditionally associated with kite-making. Another potent reason is the impact of climate change. Recent climatological statistics suggest that there are now more chances of rains in Kolkata and West Bengal during Vishwakarma Puja and in September than there used to be in the past.

But kite-flying is a very ancient and globally spread pastime that has cut across all geographical, religious, economic, and other barriers. Some 2500 years ago, the Chinese used kites to send signals, measure distances, and even lift people into flight. Kite flying was spread by traders from China to Korea and then to India. Monks used bamboo and silk kites for religious and ceremonial purposes, sending messages and prayers to the spiritual world. By 1295, Marco Polo documented their construction and how to fly kites, and interest spread for hundreds of years. During the 18th century, kites started to be used in the field of science. In 1752, for instance, Ben Franklin conducted his experiment to prove that lightning was indeed electricity. In his novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini brilliantly portrays the passion for kite flying in Afghanistan, especially in Kabul: “And if you were a boy living in Kabul, the day of the tournament [kite fighting tournament] was undeniably the highlight of the cold season… I never slept the night before the tournament. I felt like a soldier trying to sleep in the trenches the night before a major battle….In Kabul, fighting kites was a little like going to war.” The kite, through the ages, has charmed countless poets, sages, mystics, fable-spinners, legend-mongers, men of letters, and filmmakers. We get mention of kites or kite-flying in writers from Shakespeare to Khaled Hosseini, from Robert Louis Stevenson to Somerset Maugham. Maugham’s short story The Kite is about hapless Herbert Sunbury, a chap so obsessed with kite-flying that he leaves his wife and later goes to prison for the sake of his all-consuming passion. There are numerous remarkable quotes relating to kites. The former Prime Minister of Britain Winston Churchill wrote that “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it,” and in a similar vein, Napoleon Hill said, “Don’t be afraid of a little opposition. Remember that the kite of success generally rises against the wind of adversity, not with it.”.

In Kolkata, kite flying started in 1856, when the last Nawab of Awadh was exiled by the British to the banks of the Hooghly. Wajid Ali Shah brought his passion for kite-flying with him. It is believed that Wajid Ali, tired of his strings getting cut during kite fights, insisted that they be coated with diamond dust. The kites have a variety of names like “Mukpoda”, “Chadiyaal”, “Petkatti”, “Mayurpankhi” and “Chowringhee”. In north India, it was once a preferred pastime, especially in Allahabad, where the kite would be called “patang”. Lucknow also did not lag behind in kite-flying spree, and kites in those days in this town would be flown from the “kothis” (bungalow houses) of fashionable rich men. Satyajit Roy, in his film “Satranj Ki Khiladi” has shown the kite fights in the sky of Lucknow. The legendary singer Kishore Kumar also sang a beautiful song about kite-flying in the film “Kaati Patang”. Equally haunting are the Bengali singer Kabir Suman’s melodious lines, “Petkatti Chadiyaal, Mombati Bagga…” The manufacturing of kites in India bridges far-flung geographies: the kite paper comes from the mills in Bengaluru; the strings from Uttar Pradesh; and the wood for the spool comes from the jungles of Assam. An inseparable part of the enjoyment of kite-flying is the preparation of the glue made from powdered glass, wood apple gum, and arrowroot for coating the string used for kite-flying. This glue, or manja, makes the thread razor-sharp and deadly for uncoated strings of less arduous or freaky flyers. Because of the presence of pulverised glass, handling this wet glue while coating the thread quite often leads to minor finger injuries and a little bleeding. But a passionate flier summarily ignores this minor pain as he is now fully engrossed in the hope of strengthening his arsenal on the eve of the struggle for supremacy in the sky.

The writer is a teacher at Sailendra Sircar Vidyalaya, Shyambazar, Kolkata