‘No.’ Parvati had her back to Ravan.
‘Please, Ma,’ he begged of her.
‘No.’
Since the business of Dil Deke Dekho, his mother’s vocabulary seemed to have shrunk to that one word. ‘Come on, Ma. Tomorrow’s Sankrant, the only day in the year everybody flies kites. Chandrakant’s got a dozen, the Gokhale boys have fifteen among the three of them. Even that boy from upstairs, Eddie, he’s got six. I’m just asking for one kite and a bit of manja.’
‘No, you learn to pass your exams. Then maybe I’ll buy you a kite.’
At least she no longer expected him to, come within the first ten.
‘You don’t buy me books, how do you expect me to pass?’
‘Where’s my gold earring?’
He gave up. It was a long time since he had pawned his mother’s gold earring. Parvati had paid the shopkeeper and redeemed it but any time Ravan wanted something, she demanded that he return it. He didn’t hold it against her. He had stolen it and he would have to pay for the theft all his life. It would have been the easiest thing for him to snitch an eight-anna coin from his mother’s purse and buy the kite, but the thought did not occur to him.
He was not about to walk out of his home because his mother had refused him some money. But her continuous nos had begun to get him down. A walk and a bit of fresh air might help him forget the kite. He was on the main road adjoining the compound of the CWD chawls when he realized that wandering around in this area was not such a good idea. Every grocer, cycle shop, chemist and even the corner Irani restaurant was selling kites and manja so sharp it would cut not just kite strings but bystanders’ throats.
If he had his way, he would make manja at home as Syed Ali from the adjoining Rafiya Manzil did. Syed Ali was the king of kite-cutters. He prepared a special glue with exotic dyes, mixed microscopic glass in it, ran thousands of yards of thread through it and then hung it up to dry. A couple of days later, he wound the red, blue, green, yellow, violet threads around wooden phirkis. It was deadly stuff. If your manja barely brushed against Syed Ali’s you could say goodbye to your kite. It would float in the air with its remnant of thread, all the tension and purpose gone out of it till it sank to street level. Suddenly seven or eight kids would appear from nowhere, weave in and out of the traffic and chase the drunken kite. Three or four pairs of hands would rise to grab the coloured paper diamond and more often than not rip it apart.
Ravan heard a voice calling his name. By the time he came out of his reverie and saw her at the Shyamjeebhai Valji Patel Grocer’s shop, it was a little too late. There wasn’t time to cross over to the other pavement as he had done for years now. She smiled that same gentle, uncertain smile. He wondered if the limp had got worse. There was a rent in the black pouch over her foot which had been repaired with coarse white twine. She tugged at the folds of her sari at her waist and tried to pull it down a little to cover the offensive obsidian at the end of her leg. It was obvious she had been to the market. She was carrying cloth bags jammed with vegetables, tea and dal in both her hands.
‘How are you, Ravan?’ Shobhan asked.
‘OK,’ Ravan muttered.
‘You’ve grown so tall. Tara was right. In a few years you’ll look like a film star.’
Ravan avoided her eyes and concentrated on the glass bangles on her right forearm. Her cotton sari with soft flowers printed on it was worn out in places but darned with such care and finesse that only close scrutiny revealed the repair work.
‘What were you going to buy?’ she asked Ravan.
‘Nothing.’
‘How silly of me. What else would you buy today but kites?’
Ravan wasn’t about to tell her that his mother had refused to give him money for the kites.
‘Give me six kites,’ Shobhan told the grocer.
What did she think about behind that tranquil face of hers? Whatever the provocation, she never clenched her jaws, swore or got angry. Did she watch everything from a distance, as if even her own life was happening to someone else? Nobody could see it but instead of a face, she wore a mask. No, Ravan wanted to rephrase that. What he and everybody else saw was the mask, not what went on inside. That’s why ten or twenty years from now, he couldn’t think beyond that, she would look just the same.
‘Here. These are for you.’
Ravan did not want to take them but could not believe his good fortune. He held them lightly. ‘Will you fly them for me, high up in the sky above all the others?’
He did not answer her.
‘Will you?’
He nodded his head.
‘Tomorrow is Sankrant. A good day to renew friendships, isn’t it? Such a long time since I said to anyone: tilgul ghya ani godgod bola. Will you have dinner with us tomorrow?’
Ravan looked uncomfortable.
‘For old times’ sake. Tara will be happy to see you.’
Why did it take him so long to answer her when he wanted to hold her hands and face and say yes, yes, yes.
‘Okay.’
‘Seven-thirty sharp? By that time it will be dark and you won’t be able to fly kites any more. We’ll play not-at-home.’ A shadow crossed her face. Ravan thought of the last time they had played cards. ‘Or we can play carrom. Or just talk. We’ve got so much catching up to do.’
They could have walked back to the chawl together but Ravan said he had some errands to run. He was about to walk away when her hand brushed his. ‘Thank you, Ravan.’ He withdrew his hand sharply. Why should she thank him when it was he who ought to have expressed his happiness and gratitude. He couldn’t figure out his awkwardness and why he was behaving in such an uncouth manner.
He was on all fours looking for a place under the steel bed to store the kites safely till the next morning when Parvatibai came out of the kitchen. Her first reaction was to check whether her earrings and bangles were still on her person. She went back to the kitchen and looked into her pantry drawer. Her wallet was still there. She opened it and counted the notes, five tenners, one fiver and a two-rupee note. Fifty-seven rupees, nothing missing there. She didn’t recall exactly how many coins had been in the change pocket but they felt right. She came out. Ravan had arranged the kites carefully above the steel trunk under the bed and was winding the manja around the wooden reel.
‘I thought I told you not to buy kites this year.’
‘You didn’t expend that many words on me. You merely said “no” to giving me money.’
‘Where did you steal the money to buy the kites?’
‘You’ve already checked and found that no money’s been stolen from your wallet and all your golden goods are intact.’
‘Don’t act smart and don’t give me so much lip. Have you taken to stealing money from outsiders now? If you have, I’ll personally hand you over to the police and make sure you go to jail. Answer me.’
‘I didn’t steal any money.’
‘Oh! So the grocer and the Irani are standing outside and distributing kites for free on the eve of Sankrant?’
‘Shobhan gave them to me.’
‘You asked her?’ She was livid now. ‘Don’t you have any shame? Bet you told her what an ogre and a harridan your mother is.’
‘She and the entire CWD block already know that,’ and before Parvatibai could interrupt him, ‘just as they are perfectly aware that your son is a hopeless criminal. No. I didn’t reveal any family secrets and I didn’t beg her to give me kites. She gave them to me of her own free will.’
‘She is a fool.’ Parvatibai was still smouldering but did not know what more to say. ‘Poor Shobhan. She must have spent a small fortune from the little she saves. She has no money to buy a new shoe for her foot.’ Parvatibai went back to the kitchen and came out again. ‘I should have given you the money.’
That night Ravan had a dream. It was Sankrant. There were at least a hundred youngsters and adults on the terrace of CWD Chawl No. 17 flying kites. The terraces of all the buildings in Mazagaon were just as full. There were people standing in the open space where he used to attend the Sabha meetings. The battle for the skies was raging. There were terrible brawls and clashes between kites. The kite-king Syed Ali a.k.a. the Butcher was living up to his deadly name. What everybody was witnessing was a massacre, pure and simple. Seven, sometimes even nine or ten, kites besieged Syed Ali’s single warrior. They ran circles around it, used every feint and trick in the book, chased it, led it astray but Syed Ali’s post-office red kite with its black death’s head and crossed bones emblem was a wily one. It acted dumb and seemed to cower, then with a casual sleight of hand turned the tables on them. Just as they were zeroing in on the kill, it slipped out from under and let them get inextricably entangled with each other. It pulled away from them and ascended rapidly. Then like a cobra bending over to administer the kiss of death, it swooped down and ever so gracefully nicked all seven or nine of them where they had tied themselves into one big knot. Soon there was nobody left in the sky but Syed Ali’s killer-kite. It was prancing and preening now, taking mincing steps one minute and sweeping the horizon the next to reaffirm its supremacy. It was a superb show, that victory dance. The death’s head leapt and froze, it somersaulted, zig zagged and shivered, it arched like a rainbow, drooped, then shot up gloriously.
It would have continued its triumphal march but for a tiny speck in the sky. Syed Ali’s kite was not about to rest on its laurels. Its mission was to police the heavens and smash any pretender, would-be usurper or riff-raff who thought that it could carve out a small principality while Big Brother was not looking. The speck had turned into a happy-go-lucky, ne’er-a-care-in-the-world daredevil of a kite. It was free-wheeling, blithely unaware of the shadow of the grim reaper racing over the buildings of Mazagaon. Perhaps Syed Ali’s mass murderer may have spared the little newcomer if it had paid its respects, acknowledged its sovereignty and fawned sheepishly around it. But to ignore it, or worse, not even be aware of it, that was heresy. It went for the cheeky tyke.
The string of the kite was in the hands of none other than the child Ravan. He was barely a year old. He held the wooden phirki almost vertically so that his dark yellow kite could unwind the green manja at a blurry speed as it rose like an impatient sun in the morning sky. But its days were clearly numbered. The butcher had traversed half the earth and waited discreetly for its prey to come within its ambit. The people on the streets and the terraces were yelling and screaming now. ‘Look out, look out. Beware, Syed Ali’s out to get you. Run. Fly.’ But the child Ravan was so engrossed in the beauty and grace of his kite, he did not hear the warnings and screams. The death’s head was upon his kite now. It bent over, went round the green manja and came full-circle. It was a stranglehold, the ultimate vice that would snuff out the upstart. Something strange happened then. At the very last minute Ravan noticed the deadly predator. He realized that this was no time to reason with the intruder. It was do or die. He flicked his finger and yanked the manja. Oh foolish audacity and suicidal temerity, the crowds down below sighed, and waited for the little kite to be cut off from its umbilical cord. Syed Ali must have felt the same way. With the supreme modesty of one who is about to crush an insignificant opponent he pulled his kite away. The death’s head turned turtle, wavered, lost its moorings and took a kamikaze dive. Slowly, almost unwillingly, Syed Ali of the demon-manja, the serial-killer of Mazagaon sank ignominiously to the ground.
There was a shout of jubilation from the crowd. They hugged each other, went mad with happiness and danced in the streets till someone looked up and lost his power of speech. They followed his gaze and saw the most incredible sight of their lives. The square yellow sun on a green leash was climbing crazily to the meridian and with it the child Ravan. Kite and child had taken off from the terrace, Ravan hanging on to the handles of the reel, and were speeding across the heavens. A hush fell upon the world. They would not look up any more because they did not want to see Ravan hurtle down to his death. Some people ran into their homes and brought out mattresses to cushion his fall but there was no way of predicting the path of his descent. Then they heard bubbling laughter. They looked up. They couldn’t believe their eyes. There was an expression of such beatitude and ethereal joy on Ravan’s face, he looked like a celestial creature. Perhaps he was the child of a god and goddess, and as the mouse was the vehicle of Lord Ganesh and the bull of Shiva, the kite was Ravan’s.
Air was his element and he seemed to float in it effortlessly. He was laughing all the way. He felt the sky racing to meet him. He opened his arms to embrace it. Now he was going to fall, he didn’t even have the support of the phirki. Nothing of the sort happened. He floated weightlessly in the air. He grasped the reel again and became a trapeze artist doing cartwheels in the air, leaping, swinging a full 360 degrees on the arms of the phirki. He waved out to the people below. The breeze caught in his hair and ruffled it. The earth was rapidly receding from his vision. He turned his right foot at an angle as if it was a rudder and moved port-wards. There, he could touch the moon now. It was cold to the touch and round like a silver lollipop. He licked it. There was no doubt in his mind, he was eating the food of the gods. His next stop was the sun.
He slipped it under his armpit. He would never be in the dark again and he could always play ball with it. He was about to crash into the sky. It swivelled and tilted dangerously. Would it crack and splinter into a billion pieces? He did not want to break a single thing in this beautiful universe. He needn’t have worried. The sky opened up and let him in. And then it came to him. He was one with the world because all things, stars and earthly creatures, trees and mud, lizards and air, sky and water were all made of the same substance. He closed his eyes and could feel a shower of stars passing through his body. He threw his head back and closed his eyes. He had never been so happy in his life.
The next morning he was on the terrace by 7.30. The sky was already a dense patchwork of bright coloured checkers. They swayed and luxuriated like miniature sailboats suspended in the air. Ravan sat on the floor and carefully measured out the exact points along the length of the kite where he would need to pierce holes on either side of the thin bamboo backbone. Now came the tricky part. You threaded the holes and tied knots so that if you held the apex of the triangle of thread with the kite as its base, the kite would balance perfectly. He tested his handiwork again and again. A slight imbalance and the kite would nosedive to the ground and break in the middle. Now he tied the kite to the manja on the phirki and slung it over the edge of the parapet. He took Shobhan’s name for she had said fly them for me and pulled the kite up. The first tug was the most important. It usually decided whether the kite would take off or needed some more adjustments. The kite lifted on a light current of air and started climbing.
The essence of kite-flying for Ravan as well as everybody else in Mazagaon was the aerial skirmish, the bellicose scrapping and the lethal dog-fights. You used all your cunning, guile and skill to scalp the kites of your friends and foes. Frankly, there were no friends on Sankrant. Every kite other than yours was the enemy. If you wanted to survive, you went for the kill. No mercy. Ravan seemed to have misplaced his aggression for the day. He avoided the other kites. Shobhan had wanted him to fly his kite higher than everybody else’s and that’s just what he was going to do. Get away from this madding crowd and land up at the pole star. Who knows, I might take flight once again, become a bird, circle the sun, trespass into the Milky Way, saunter around Jupiter and on my way back meet Martians. From the corner of his eye, he saw an aubergine patch stealing in on his red and blue. He yanked sharply at his kite, swerved it to the right and continued to fly it out of harm’s way. But the airborne missile was bent on a fight and tracked his kite down. Damn, who was out to get him so early in the day? It was difficult to locate his enemy in that vast crowd on the terrace but he identified him soon enough. Eddie. Ravan, even after all these years, could not understand his neighbour’s single-minded animosity. He decided to lose altitude rapidly and give Eddie the slip. But Eddie’s aubergine combat aircraft continued in hot pursuit. On any other day Ravan would have said, ‘You want a scrap, Eddie? You’ve got it.’ Not today. All he wanted was to coast along lazily. But Eddie followed him throughout the day like his shadow and nemesis.
Sometime in the afternoon Syed Ali noticed Eddie strutting around and gloating, ‘Kati patang, kati patang. Watch out, Ravan, here’s your fourth kite gone.’ But that was not to be. The kite-killer of Mazagaon thought it was time to teach Eddie a lesson. Nobody beats Syed Ali except in dreams. Like everybody else Eddie had to eat his words. Ravan felt no sense of elation or satisfaction. He was merely relieved to be left alone
The sun was spilling blood onto the horizon. The sky was anchored to the earth with thousands of coloured strings. Ravan had been down to his home just twice in the entire day, once to drink water and the next time to pee. If there had been slaughter all day long, there was no sign of it now barring the swollen red river in the sky. An exhausted quiet had settled on the terraces of Mazagaon. Ravan was on his last kite. Its flaming orange stood steadfast in the still air. At one end of the terrace a few boys were exchanging notes about how many kites they had downed and what devious and heroic strategies they had used.
His kite was darkening now. There was a slight wind blowing and it rocked from side to side as if it was putting itself to sleep. If you had a long enough string, would a kite reach all the way to the moon? He wound the manja and brought his kite down. He was exhausted, happy and famished.
He bathed, put on a washed and ironed shirt and shorts, combed his hair and sat down.
‘You must be dying of hunger,’ Parvati said to him. ‘Come, I’ll serve you dinner.’
‘I’m not feeling hungry.’
‘Must be all that sun.’ There was concern in Parvati’s voice. ‘But you can’t go to bed on an empty stomach. I’ll make you some buttermilk.’
‘No.’ He got up and had three glasses of water.
‘Are you angry with me?’
It was an odd question coming from his mother. ‘Why would I be angry with you?’
‘Because I didn’t buy the kites for you.’
‘No,’ he answered matter-of-factly, ‘I’m not.’
There were boundaries of affection that Parvati would not cross. Neither she nor her son would be able to handle it.
‘If you change your mind later, it’s all right. Even if it’s twelve o’clock, I’ll warm up the food for you,’
He got out his notebook and started working on algebraic equations. The door was open as all doors in a chawl are till the time you go to sleep and sometimes even after that. He waited for the sound of Shobhan’s footsteps, one firm and the other a little muted and hesitant.
‘Why haven’t you come, Ravan? We are all waiting for you. I’ve made shrikhand for you.’ She would smile and take his hand and drag him to her house. Shobhan did not smile with her mouth but with her eyes and it was one of the most beautiful sights in the world.
He wanted so much to go to the Sarang house. He wanted to be with those nine sisters but most of all with Shobhan. He would do anything to wipe out all those intervening years when he had turned his back on them and kept the memory of the pool of blood under Tara at bay.
He lay in bed and waited for her to come and get him even after it was past one at night.
