Wishing everyone a Happy Independence Day!

I'm sharing my story about a brave little kite called Tiranga,
who learns to fly with a little help from his friends.

Flying High

The Story of a Brave Little Kite

Always hold your head up high!

Here is the list of characters in our story

Tiranga* – a brave little tricoloured kite

Ram Kumar – the master kite-maker

Chutki – one of the makers of Tiranga, and the daughter of Ram Kumar

Vijay – one of the makers of Tiranga, and the son of Ram Kumar

Ajgar – a nasty kite that looks like a demon

Leher – a helpful pink kite

Guru – an experienced kite that has won many kite battles

Many other kites of different shapes and sizes.

And the story begins...

Hi! My name is Tiranga – I’m a little kite and I soar in the breeze with pride. But I wasn’t always able to hold my head up high. In fact, I was scared of heights. But today I’m not afraid of anything. Let me tell you why. 

The first thing I remember is lying in pieces on the floor of the kite-maker’s hut. I was being put together by Vijay and Chutki, the kite-maker’s children and apprentice kite-makers themselves.

First, Vijay joined two thin strips of bamboo in the shape of a cross, with the smaller horizontal piece tied across the longer vertical one about three-fourths along its length. He then bent a third strip of bamboo in a curve. He stuck the top of the vertical strip to the middle of the curved strip, so that the curved piece’s ends touched the tips of the cross-wise horizontal strip, where he fastened them together. He then stuck four thin strips of bamboo in a diamond shape to form my edges. My skeleton was ready! Chutki stretched three pieces of coloured paper across the bamboo frame, neatly glued the edges and added a colourful tail to my lower end.

 I was a smart little diamond-shaped kite, with saffron, white and green bands and a tail with three colourful ribbons! The children propped me up against a wall, alongside all the other kites they had made earlier.

‘Oh! Look at the smart new kite,’ a pretty pink one with golden spangles said.

‘Hi! I’m Leher. What’s your name?’ She asked me.

‘I’m Tiranga,’ I said, ‘I’m new here.’

‘Don’t worry, after you’ve flown a few times you’ll be fine. We were all new once, weren’t we grandpa?’ she said looking at a battered kite nearby.

‘Yes, yes, newcomers, no respect for elders,’ said the battered kite.

‘He is Guru’ Leher whispered. ‘He is the most experienced flier of us all. Hush, Ram Kumar, the kite-maker’s coming.’

Ram Kumar walked in carrying a large kite with a demon-like face and came over to see what his children were doing.

‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Let’s take the kites out and test them.’

Vijay tied a string to my midsection and carried me out into the field to see if I could fly. 

Chutki held me carefully by my shoulders and threw me into the air, while Vijay held the reel and pulled me upwards with the help of the wind. Meanwhile Ram Kumar launched the demon-faced kite.

I didn’t know what to do or how to fly. The wind was blowing in my face and I became frightened and turned away. 

Then I was blown from side to side and to make things worse, the demon-faced kite tried to attack me. 

‘Ha, Ha! I am Ajgar and I’m going to eat you up!’ he thundered, as he tried to swoop down on me. I was so scared, I tried to run away, hide behind a cloud and avoid Ajgar, but the string in Vijay’s hand held me back. 

Ajgar swooped forward and dashed against me. Suddenly my string was broken and I was spinning, tumbling and falling out of the sky. I felt as if I was going to fall apart and then I felt only darkness...

When I regained consciousness, I was back in the hut and Chutki was gently repairing a tear on my body. ‘Poor kite,’ she said ‘to be almost destroyed on your first flight.’

‘Oh, it was the big kite’s fault,’ said Vijay, carrying in the demon-faced kite. ‘We shouldn’t have flown them together. We’ll try flying the tricolour kite again tomorrow morning. It’s got a good balance. I’m sure we can do more with it.’

Chutki propped me up as far from the big kite as possible and they left to have dinner.

I was utterly miserable, in tears, and sure that I would never fly again. 

‘Don’t be sad,’ a soft voice said. It was Leher. ‘Everyone feels low sometimes.’

‘But, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to fly and I am so scared of being at such a height.’

‘Scared, of course, you are. We all were the first time. So was I.’ It was the gruff voice of Guru, the grizzled old kite.‘You, you were scared?’ I asked him, incredulously.

‘Yes, and if you’re not scared, you’re a fool,’ Guru said. ‘What you need to do is accept your fear and use it. Turn it into something positive. When you feel the wind in your face, don’t turn away from it. Face the wind and say, “Bring on your worst; I can overcome it, because I was born to fly!” Turn your face to the wind, and it will uplift you. Just remember – Open your heart and fly and always hold your head up high!’

‘Thank you Guru,’ I said. ‘I’ll try and remember that’ and soon dropped off to sleep.

Next morning, Vijay and Chutki took me out to the field again. There was a strong breeze blowing. I tried to remember what Guru had said. When Chutki threw me up and I felt the wind in my face, though I was scared and wanted to avoid it, I didn’t turn away and tried to brave the strong breeze.

Though I was thrown from side to side, I tried to look firmly ahead and not lose my balance. Then, all of a sudden, I felt a PUSH and it was me being carried up by gusts of air, as the wind blew strongly beneath me. As I was blown from side to side, I stayed upright and looked ahead and that’s when I realized I was flying.

‘Oh! Look, I’m flying!’ I shouted, ‘I’m on Cloud Nine!’

‘So is everyone else!’ Leher replied, laughing, as she, Guru and some other kites danced around the clouds nearby.

‘Oh, it’s all of you!’ I laughed back at them.

‘It’s not just us silly, look below,’ she said.

And there was the most amazing sight. Vijay and Chutki had tied many smaller tricolour kites to my string and were sending them up after me. As the wind blew and I rose higher and higher, the long tail of kites stretched after me like a tricoloured rainbow in the sky.

‘I was born to fly!’ I exulted, as Leher and I, 

and countless other kites, danced across the sky...

Text by Priyamvada, Images by Ajit Narayan

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* Tiranga means Tricolour in Hindi and is used as a synonym for the Indian national flag, Ajgar means python, Leher means wave, and Guru is a learned teacher.