पतंग उड़ना (flying a kite)

पतंग उड़ना

My fingers have bled, I’m dark, but I became even darker, got numerous lectures, but at the end of it I did learn to fly a kite. It’s a skill everywhere on the planet I am sure, but from what I have seen here in India, it’s a little more demanding.

With no one at home who flew kites and friends too who were not helpful out here, all I had was a neighbor who’d fly his kites with skill that I have not witnessed anywhere else. Shankar bhaiya was the god of kite flying as far as I was concerned.

Like with all things in life, here too hard work paid off and at end of months of hard work, I was able to send my kites way off into the horizon and often loose them there too.

Kite flying taught me patience, it taught me to believe in myself- both of which have helped me tremendously with my photography.  To be able to get a kite to rise when its gone so low that you can’t see it, when you can pick it when it looks like it has to, it must crash into the house or water tank not so far away it.

Its not just about getting some paper stuck onto a bamboo frame to catch the wind…..  it’s about knowing how to keep yourself afloat at times when you feel there is nothing to carry you forward, to stay afloat when it looks like you’ll crash, its about learning that you CAN if you believe.