[Reader-list] Go, Fly A Kite!

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear all,

Here is the slightly longer, original version of a text by me on Kite  
Flying that appeare in the latest issue of Outlook, to mark the 15th  
of August. The version published in Outlook, titled 'Freedom on A  
String'  is at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?261336

Apologies for cross posting on Kafila

best

Shuddha

-------------------------



Go, Fly a Kite

Shuddhabrata Sengupta

There is almost nothing about rituals of statehood that appeals to  
me. The speeches leave me cold and patriotic anthems are the worst,  
most ponderous form of music ever performed or invented. As for the  
pomp and circumstance of parades and other solemn but pathetic  
attempts at grandeur - they only repeat their lessons in how distant  
the apparatus of the state actually is from the lives of citizens.

  Typically, my attention, when flags are raised up poles, is less on  
the flag and more on the sweat on the brow of the man doing most of  
the actual hoisting. Because flags, like nations, get stuck in their  
destinies, and sometimes have to be tugged at vigorously to open and  
flap about, or let loose their meagre shower of yesterday's  
desiccated flower petals. The palpable anxiety of the hoister (who is  
worried about what might get written into his confidential report if  
the string snaps, or the flag stay’s tied up) and the thinly masked  
frustration on the visage of the attendant dignitary, (be they the  
principal of a school or the president of a republic ) who wants it  
all over and done with as quickly as possible, are the two  
performances that I find most moving on these moments. Apart, that  
is, from the sporadic defecations of ceremonial cavalry horses,  
caparisoned elephants and aloof camels brought out to lend the parade  
of the moment a touch of bio-diversity. Somehow, they ring truer than  
most other attempts to mark such occasions.

  Republic Day, with its pornography of ordnance, enormous waste of  
public money and tacky tableaux is probably the worst offender, but  
Independence Day, with its schoolchildren bused out to the Red Fort  
in Delhi and made to suffer the humiliation of security checks at the  
crack of a humid dawn, doesn't rank far behind. They, (the  
schoolchildren at Red Fort) lose a well-earned holiday, and nowadays,  
the rest of India gets a pious homily from behind bullet-proof glass.  
Rather than being an occasion for quiet, sober and perhaps personal  
reflection on what liberty might mean (especially when so many  
subjects of this republic are denied its substance) and whether it  
really needs to come all dressed up in the masquerade of a hollow  
state ritual, Independence Day has become an empty vessel for an  
increasingly narcissistic commemoration of what it means to simply  
'be' Indian, as if that were of any real consequence. Meanwhile, the  
violence that marked partition, co-incident with 'Independence', goes  
un-mourned in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The bizarre  
continuities, ranging from law and governance to the arcana of state  
ceremonials, between colonialism and its posthumous progeny -  
republican nationhood, remain un-reflected upon. What we get instead  
is an annual faux carnival of top-ten lists to do with an invented  
'Indian-ness' dished out by magazines and television decked out in  
tri-colour bad taste.

  But there is something about the fifteenth of August that still  
means a lot to me, and that isn't about flying flags. It's about  
flying kites. The fifteenth of August, as anyone growing up in North  
India ought to know, is really all about manja and pench, about  
letting loose a full throated cry 'bho-katta', when an airborne kite  
snaps from its string in the sky, and the mad run and skirmish for  
its capture that follows before it hits the earth.  Its about  
decoding a persons passions from the colours they choose for their  
kites, about learning to test the strength of paper and to sense the  
wind by licking your finger. These, and other elementary lessons in  
areodynamics are still reasons to look forward to the fifteenth of  
August each year.

Perhaps it's a throwback to the boyhood thrill of holding a taut kite- 
string in the precarious rooftops and bylanes of a ‘refuzee’ colony  
in west Delhi, head cocked up, eyes locked in a steadfast gaze intent  
on scanning the clouded August sky, tracking distant, tiny but  
majestic diamonds of colour as the kites danced to the wind. Their  
flight taught me more about ‘attaining liberty’ and their spiralling  
descent more about ‘losing it’ than all the civics lessons on the  
meaning and significance of ‘Independence Day’ ever could.

  Anand Bakshi, in writing the lyrics for the film Kati Patang,  
(Drifting Kite) did not know that he had, perhaps unwittingly gifted  
us with the one of the most pithy ways of thinking about the destiny  
of nationhood and nationalism, that at least I know about. As the  
song goes, 'Na koi umang hai, na koi tarang hai', -  there is neither  
a surge, nor a wave. Ships of state adrift in still, motionless  
waters, their flags just about fluttering in a spent tailwind, are to  
me like so many kati patang, drifting kites; neither surge, nor wave,  
and certainly no pious ritual, can lift them out of their torpor.

  What can one do, in such circumstances, but heed the call of Mary  
Poppins and her friends, Mr. Banks and Bert, and simply, 'go fly a  
kite'.

  "With tuppence for paper and strings

You can have your own set of wings

With your feet on the ground

You're a bird in a flight

With your fist holding tight

To the string of your kite



Oh, oh, oh!

Let's go fly a kite

Up to the highest height!

Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring

Up through the atmosphere

Up where the air is clear

Oh, let's go fly a kite!'











Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net