Zip, Zoom, Soar…..

Author: Ratna Varma, Head of Department of English, Delhi Public School, Varanasi.

That’s what you feel like – light and free – when you fly a kite. How beautiful is the experience! The wind in our wings, the sun in our eyes, we soar above the mundane and forget our troubles.

I am ready, I’m going to fly…..the wind is in my favour –

but in an instant I realise – what goes up must fall down.

Come Makar Sankranti and a rainbow of kites can be seen soaring high in the sky.

As I watch the myriad hues of the modern kites- the dragon shaped kite or the butterfly kite I reminisce my childhood days when we got only the triangular shaped kites. The memories of the past meet the present and I am reminded of the exhilarating experience of kite flying. Little did I know then that kite flying was not just a festive sport but that it was a sport of life.

Whizzzzz…….a kite falls at my feet and I pick it up – it’s a beautiful blue coloured kite. How much of labour must have been put by the kite maker!

Kite maker? I look up and think – Isn’t God too a kite maker, and we the kites? I swirl and twirl and Whizz past every stage of life. My kite maker gave me this beautiful life and taught me to manoeuvre my way through every step.

I realise that not every opposition is bad, for the kite rises the highest against the wind, not with it.

It is an inspiration to face turbulence in its stride and keep connected. The kite reels and unreels itself – just like we return home at dusk after having soared high in our professional journey.

A kite teaches us to balance our life. No matter what comes in our journey we must not leave the string of hope.

I pick up the kite – if I surrender the story ends. I attach a new string and it reappears in the sky.

I want my children to fly kites this makar sankranti- learning to balance, connect, reel, unreel, soar, zip and zoom in joyful colors.