Back to Kolkata and the BMS Hostel

All is calm

On the first leg of my journey home, sat in the beautiful gardens of the Baptist Missionary Hostel once again. I was waiting for an Indian friend to arrive before going out for a meal together. As I waited, I noticed some objects flapping in the sky. At first I thought they were birds, but then I realised that they were kites. Not the kites we usually see in the UK, but fighting kites. If you have seen the film, “The Kite Runner” you will know what I mean.  The kites themselves do not look very big, as they flap backwards and forwards, high in the sky. Their aim is not just to fly, but to be the only kite left in the sky. If you look up into the trees in the BMS hostel garden, it looks rather like a kite graveyard, where  defeated kites have come to rest. My friend, Ritu, who grew up in West Bengal, remembered how they used to glue ground glass onto the string of their kites, so that they could cut through the string of an opponent. I watched two kites dancing with each other for about 10 minutes, hoping to see one of them come tumbling to earth, but it didn’t happen. There must have been at least half a dozen kites in the small area of sky I was watching, and it was heartening to know that these pastimes still continue in our digital age.

One of the kites which has died

This tree had captured three kites. Fans of the Peanuts cartoons will know the significance of this.