Yesterday I was coming back home from Kurmun. Near Nadra, I was taking a much-needed sip from a green daab I bought from a daabwallah. Daabwallah pulled a ramshackle van. His van was filled with daab shells cut asunder down the middle by a well whetted chopper. I found out cut-down daabs heavily outnumbered those that remained still intact.
Suddenly a man stood before me. I was so engrossed in sipping the light sap that I did not notice the man at first. As if from a reverie, I jerked back to reality as the man asked me something pointing at the sky feverishly. I looked up. Except the slate-coloured sky and fire-breathing sun, I saw nothing.
‘Didn’t you notice the paanwalee floating away in waves?’ The man asked astonished. I was equally astonished to find a middle-aged man getting so excited in the mid of the noon when nature wilted under sweltering heat. There was hardly any traffic on the road. Except we, the three, there was none on the road. Paddy fields on both sides of the road were mercilessly shaken down by a gust of hot air. Labourers were drooping under a banyan tree nearby close to a pond.
‘Paanwalee has been out of favour for the kite makers and fliers alike for at least last two decades. Now-a-days only synthetic kites are used. They’re largely mono-coloured.’ I said. The man looked unconvinced. ‘No. I’ve seen it.’ The man averred.
‘He has all the screws loose,’ the daabwallah said and gesticulated at his head as I was about to give him a fifty rupee note after throwing the daab towards a heap of burnt-down field garbage some distance off. I did not respond but walked up to the man.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘who will fly kites now when everyone keeps himself indoors?’
The man looked at me in such a manner as if I asked a silly question. The white stubble in his face oddly glistened in sun. His uncombed mop of hair got unruly in mad air.
‘In our times we flew kites all the year round… be it winter, summer or monsoon. Paanwalee was my favourite kite. A big paan was drawn in the middle of the kite….’ The man went on.
‘It’s actually a heart. Don’t know why it was called paanwalee instead of heartwalee.’ I said.
Now the man looked impressed. He came close to me. I fished out the mask from deep inside the jeans side pocket and wore it tight covering my mouth. The man presented an ill-suppressed smile. ‘Believe me, I’ve been following the kite right from Kurmun.’ He said. For the first time I saw the man panting a little.
‘What do you do?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘What are you?’ I sort of explained.
‘I chased. Only chased..wherever I got the chance.’ He said.
‘What?’
‘There’s no harm done in chasing my childhood. It’s there in kite. It is where happiness resides.’ The man said. He half-disrobed himself and stepped back a little where the banyan tree stood out amply. Then he dodged out the dozing labourers and plunged to the pond. The sparkling water splashed around. ‘Believe me, happiness is still possible.’ He said as he swam away.
I came back to my parked scooter near the bemused daabwallah. He immediately got every inch of my movement under his close scrutiny. He suspected I might have gone loose in my screws too. Otherwise it was not possible to spend so much time with the kite searching man.
Getting back home, I went straight up to the roof to move the potted plants under the shade. I stood dumb-stuck as I found a paanwalee entwined its thread around a blooming Karobee. I disentangled the kite and flew it as far as possible with the available thread.
I did not feel like going back to the man to give him the kite he gave a hot chase to. I pulled the kite back to me and ran my fingers all over the red-white paanwalee.
Now I hang the kite on a sky-blue wall just over my study table. Every now and then I give a glance at it. Like the tramping man, I come to believe happiness is etched in that piece of paper that is cut out from afar and lands on roof. My childhood flies back with a blast of wistful happiness.