fly-ING

He-he-hello there!

I am sorry, I just meant to say Hello! It's just, I get a little a-a-a-anxious when I speak because my words can run away on their own, especially when I lack confidence. My Indian accent too becomes more prominent and then everything starts coming out sideways in these stu-stu-stuttering streams. I have to smack myself like a coughing radio and pray the syllables align. Sometimes they don’t and then GOTCHA!

People look at me funny.

You see, I am not really from C-A-N-A-DUH.

I am a chameleon of sorts changing colors/ to avoid being othered/ severed from our mothers…sorry. I did it again!

You see, I also start rhyming uncontrollably on curious occasions. Emotions bubble up and break through the surface. The Doctor reports this to be a form of verbal dyslexia but assures me it typically improves with age. Something about ‘neuroplasticity’ that allows nerves to connect and disconnect as the body develops according to our inherited genes and childhood experiences - AKA Nature vs Nurture!

Anyways, as I was saying, I recently flew to Canada (all by myself) in pursuit of a higher-education. I keep this journal to practice expressing myself in short sentences. The same Doctor said it would help structure my thoughts better. Besides I think it's therapeutic to keep a journal, to help me remember where I came from and to remind me where I am going.

-

Flipping through the journal Pages, I know I have not had much opportunity to write about my Pa. The humble truth is he wasn’t around for most of my adolescence for me to remember much. His ultimate goal in life was to be able to always support us - pay the bills and such - something his own father couldn’t. You see, my paternal grandfather passed away when Pa was only twelve and so most of Pa’s early life was lost to searching for a gig that would hire him, and his adult-life thereafter was spent working that role. The job was that of an assembly line worker - where Pa would assemble knobs on transistor radios for hours on end. I would sometimes daydream about Pa getting so tired of the monotony that he'd suffer a comical meltdown like Chaplin in Modern Times - running wild and getting himself stuck in a machine and in turn throwing the entire factory into chaos. However, in what seemed like a repetitive space, the assembly line suited Pa and his calm demeanour. He was a man of defined steps, a child of utmost discipline who’d make his own bed, fold his own clothes, eat his meals, all at scheduled times - like a well-oiled machine.

Yet it was this same regime that also allowed Pa to return home every January to celebrate Poush Sankranti with us.

An auspicious day in the Hindu Calendar, Poush Sankranti marks the ascent of the Sun into the Capricorn zodiac.

Throughout the month-long festivities, people from all walks of life gather in swarms to bathe in the sacred river Ganga. For farmers, Poush Sankranti signals Lord Surya: the Sun’s return for a prosperous harvest season, while factory workers offer their prayers toward safe working conditions and smooth functioning of machines. On the river banks, priests perform pūjās by reciting special mantras which are said to open portals for new healing when uttered and heard.

For me, however, the peak of Sankranti was its kite flying competition...bubbling congregations/ a soup of emotions/ flying kites/ crafting compositions!

Boys, girls, grown-up men and women would rise early and plant themselves on their respective terraces. They would grasp spools with reels of multicolored thread connected to their guddis, kites, soon to take flight.

By noon, the clear blue skies would be glittering with colorful diamonds, marking the start of our annual kite-flying competition.

-

How to make a kite:

Pa and I would begin our preparations days prior.

“Each ingredient is crucial,” Pa would repeat the same line every year as we sat hunched over our kite-making materials, “remember the lighter the material, the better the kite will fly.”

1. A newspaper
2. Coconut broomsticks
3. Strings
4. Rice Glue
5. Scissors

Body: 18" x 20" > Tail: 7" x 8"

I envied how Pa could always write in such linear lists and organized hierarchies. I would wonder if Pa thought in structures too. In contrast, my thoughts would come in clouds, bubbles of commonalities with no clear relationships or points of order. This would often lead me to mix up the steps, for which I would be promptly admonished to follow the instructions - like on the day we won.

-

Although we called it a competition, there were just too many kites in too vast a space for anyone to be declared the one true winner. The logistics wouldn’t allow it.

Still, I can recount the day we won.

It was the very last year Pa and I would fly a kite together for I was to leave for Canaduh, where terms ran from the month of September through to April. Pa seemed a little emotional that day, although that too would be saying too much.

As typical we started at noon, with Pa steering the kite and me, his spool-bearer. The spool rolled up meters of manja - an abrasive thread coated with mixtures of rice glue and finely powdered glass to cut off other manjas. If a finger got in its way, it too could be severely sliced! A skilled flier would carefully pull the manja such that their kite swooped down to corner another kite. The two manjas would then intertwine and start sawing each other off. If successful, the corned kite would be severed from its flier and free-fall back to earth.

On that particular day, Pa and I flew the kite for hours, up until twilight when just two kites were left in our sky.

“This is it!” Pa called out, his eyes on the final kite he was about to corner, “I just need a little more thread!”

But there was a tiny obstacle.

It was me.

It was my spool.

My spool was stuck.

I felt myself start to sweat as fear began leaking into my prior excitement. The creeping realization that we might lose because of me was dizzying as all our hard work leading up to this moment appeared to have been in vain.

My surroundings began to flicker with strange flashes of vision, which in turn began syncing with Pa's voice.

“C’mon! I need more!” Pa yells, unable to switch his eyes.

“I can't! It's stuck!”

“Why!”

“I think I ma-ma-made a mi-mi-mistake rolling it up.”

“I TOLD you to follow the steps!”, Pa roars with rage.

His transmitting anger shakes my antenna. I feel the heat. Neuroplastic nerves are connecting and disconnecting inside me with blistering fury.

I am angry at Pa! I am angry at myself! I am angry at the spool! I am angry at the Kite! Oh Kite! Why now Kite?

“Please, do something! Anything!”, Pa's anger quickly gives way to a sense of desperation. It begins to brew something inside me... Kite! Oh Kite!/ scraps of paper/ DNA-manjas intertwined/ Kite! Oh Kite!/ I am the wind behind!/ I am the light!/ I am the Kite!/ I AM the Kite!

Suddenly, the air is cold and thin. It thrusts against my streamlined body as the city hovers below like a dimly distant planet.

“I am up here!”, I call out to Pa from heights above.

He cannot hear me for he is too far away.

“I have become your kite Pa!”, I yell from the top of my lungs as I glide closer to the other kite’s tail, “Don't worry! I have it!”

The gentle glow of the setting Sun guides me as I swoop down to close in for the kill.

But something pulls me back.

It’s the manja.

Pa is pulling on my string.

“No! Let me go!”, I scream, “I have it!”

Pa still cannot hear me, so in retaliation, I push away with epic force. At that exact moment, Pa lets out an agonizing yelp.

His shriek disorientates me.

I am back on our terrace where loud crimson drops crash on the concrete floor. It’s Pa. His thumb has split open.

“I am so sorry”, I burst into tears, “you should have let it go!”

“It’s okay, it is not your fault”, Pa tries to calm my shaking as he wraps his hand in newspapers which soaks the wound up in black circles, “I pulled it too hard.”

We look up to see our kite floating directionless as it gently sways back and forth. It's been cut.

“They won.”

“I really thought I had it. I was the kite, I was actually there Pa!”

“Trust me, it wasn’t your fault. You were right, the spool is stuck.”

“It was.”

“It’s okay, we will get them next...oh wait, but you are..”

“Gone next year", I finish his sentence as we both realize the same thing.

Pa holds onto the newspaper around his hand and after a few moments of silence, he beckons me over with his right shoulder.

“Do you know the story behind Poush Sankranti?”, Pa asks.

The sky is a dark orange as I sit down next to Pa.

“It is to celebrate the Sun - Lord Surya.”

“Yes, but there is a story behind it. My father would recite it so.”

“My g-g-grandfather?”

“Of course. Did you know he was a great orator? I know I don’t talk about him much but the truth is we didn’t have much time together.”

“Like a poet?”

“Hmm", Pa smiles, "more so, it was his ability to remember lengthy poems from the Vedas. In fact, that is how he told me the story of Poush Sankranti, in his brilliant flashes of poetry!

You see, every January Lord Surya (Sun) pays a visit to his son Shani (Saturn), who rules over the kingdom of Capricorn. It is said that Lord Surya and Shani do not get along but still, the Sun pays a month’s visit to His son’s house. This is why we celebrate Sankranti, not just for Lord Surya but for His safe journey to meet Shani despite their differences."

"Lord Surya flies to Saturn's house every Sankranti? Like me, Pa, I was really flying!"

"Sure, in a way, we all are."

"No not like...", I am interrupted by Pa's runaway words.

"Like the Sun or Saturn, our Earth too, is a beautiful celestial body, hurling through space right at this very moment. So are we, our bodies, our thoughts, our feelings, they are always in flight."

"Always in flight?"

"And so next year", Pa shifts his focus back to me, "even if we are not together, we will still be in flight, just from two different sides of the world. The Sun will again ascend into Capricorn and by entering Saturn's house, Lord Surya will bless his children no matter where they are - so that we too may keep rising.”