Last Wednesday was Makar Sankranti, to celebrate Sun’s transit into Capricorn marking the end of winter solstice. The festival is celebrated in many different forms across all parts of India with much fervour as a harvest festival and kite flying is an integral part of this celebration in many parts of India. Come Makar Sankranti, usually celebrated on the 14th of January and the skies are dotted with colourful kites especially in Gujrat, Rajasthan, and parts of UP and MP.
I do not know how to fly a kite but have held the reel of thread for my brothers and have also run with them chasing the ones that flew down after getting cut. Kites are as attractive as balloons and tempt young and old alike. Flying them is very much a lesson in Physics as a kite rises against the wind and not with it. It needs both skill and concentration to fly a kite which is a cheap and fun activity.
Speaking of kites, I am often reminded of two stories. One is ‘Kaki’ by Siyaram Sharan Gupt which I read many years ago in my Hindi textbook. The story revolves around a small boy Shamu who lost his mother. When he comes to know that she has gone to live with the Gods, he hatches a plan with his friend Bhola to bring her down from the Heavens above with the means of a kite. He requests his father for 4 annas to buy a kite but steals it from his pocket when refused the money. On realising that the thread of the kite is too thin to bring his mother down, he steals a rupee from his father to buy a thicker string, but his deed is found out by the father. Outraged the father slaps him and throws the kite in anger only to find the word ‘Kaki’ (mother) written on the torn kite.
The other story is Khaled Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’, which tells the story of Amir and Hassan and how their friendship is formed and ends because of kites and finally the acceptance of Amir by Hassan’s son over a kite. A touching story which I liked immensely. There’s a line in the book which is repeated twice. Once at the turning point of the story and again in the end as it veers to another turn, a positive one where the story ends. That line is the title of this post.
We all have such people in life for whom we can go like the kite against the wind to reach them or have them back, the way Shamu wanted to bring back his mother or are willing to go through the same cycle, a thousand times over just because those people are more important to us than our own selves and we can go to any length to retain them in our lives. This post is dedicated to the person/s in our lives to whom we want to say, “For you, a thousand times over.”