For those who haven’t yet read Kite Strings, here’s Chapter 1 – Flying High

Chapter 1 – Flying High

If I had known that after today, the three of us would never play again, I still wouldn’t have been able to do anything. We were on the terrace flying kites and a warm wind buffeted them wildly. Puffs of breeze blowing about quickly only served to undo hair that our mothers had pulled back tightly and held in place with pins. Rehana and I were mere spectators watching Basheer shake and tug at the thread, his head held against the cobalt blue sky, eyes squinted.

I remembered feeling the gritty manja in my hand, the crisp, papery kite with a weight of its own in the sky, the wind crackling the kite, and then the lightness in my hand as I watched the green kite slip away from my hand as another captured it. After that, Basheer politely refused to let us fly his kites.

The terrace of our house looked out over Vellore and we could see really far, right into the imposing mountains in the distance. Other flat terraces were dotted with children flying kites like Basheer; some were just watching.

Across the terraces, no one spoke. Concentration from the kites wavered for only a little while, before it slid back to the sky with determination.  However, for Rehana and me, watching Basheer fly a kite was like watching TV. We continued talking to each other, and would even encourage him enthusiastically. Once, he threw away the spindle and glared at us before walking away because our constant chatter had distracted him. We tried to be silent, but often forgot and it was understood between the two of us that Basheer probably flew kites better when he was alone.

Basheer was a silent boy, around my age but a little younger than me. He was often shy and he stuttered when he spoke to us. But most often he was seen staring at the sky, his brow bunched together in numerous lines, his eyes turning inward into slits as they followed the kites bobbing around in the sky.

I once asked him what the big deal was in flying a kite.

‘I mean, you just make sure it rises in the air and then you try to make it fly high. What’s the point in that?’

He looked at me and curled his lips in a sneer and said, ‘What would you know, Appi?’ It was one of the few times he had spoken to me disrespectfully. He was the only one to ever call me Appi because Rehana always called me by my name and Mateen, my three year old brother had tried calling me that but ended up calling me ‘Pee’.

I pestered Basheer to explain what he meant. He shrugged his shoulders in a jerky movement and stumbled over the words. ‘You have to…you’ve got to feel the power of putting a kite in the sky and, and… letting it fly without letting it go out of your control.’

The logic seemed a bit warped to me. ‘You want to let it fly, and you still want to hold it in your hands?’ He turned away from me, a little irritated and proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the evening.

I looked up and saw his sky-blue kite duel with a maroon one. I plucked Rehana’s sleeve and we both tried to follow what was happening. The maroon kite was wildly circling ours.

‘Yes, Basheer, go on, cut out his kite!’

Basheer ignored us and with deft flicks of his wrist he moved his kite up and down. My eyes tried to follow the string trying to see which house it led to, but each time I tried to pin it down, it seemed to belong somewhere else. Basheer’s fingers had a crisscross pattern of cuts, some which had dried and some which bled afresh from the manja on the string. Sweat ran down in a thin stream at his temples as he concentrated on saving his kite. He was desperately trying to manoeuvre it away from that horrid maroon one.

It was over in two minutes. Basheer stamped his foot and flung away the spindle and walked away angrily. Our blue kite danced a bit in the air, and then flipped and fell away from our sight. A whoop followed it. On the same line of houses as ours, a young boy was jumping and waving wildly on his terrace. He must have been fifteen at least.

He was clapping and hooting and my face felt warm and without really thinking of why I was doing it, I slid my foot from my rubber chappal and picked it up and flung it hard in his direction. The slipper fell on his terrace and Rehana shook my arm and whispered, ‘Are you mad?’ The boy laughed again. Feeling a strong surge of irritation, I pulled out my other slipper and this time, with a short prayer I swung my arm right behind me and flung it forward. The slipper hit the boy’s shoulder and he flinched.

We laughed at him but stopped when we saw him bend down to remove one of his slippers. Rehana and I ran to the door that led to the terrace, and we barely got it open when we heard a thud! Rehana giggled. Another thud and both of us burst out laughing. Dark streaks were spreading across the sky, gently bringing in dusk. It was time we headed downstairs anyway.

I could even hear Ammi calling out for me. Her voice coming from downstairs seemed to emanate from another world and although I was loathe to leave this one and go down, I suddenly realized that I didn’t have any slippers. How was I going to explain that?

Rehana ran across the terrace once more, and was back before I could even guess what she was doing. She held out two well-used slippers. The sole was flat like a chapathi and it was almost the same colour as my own chappals. It would have to do.

I slipped my feet into them. They felt grainy, as though they had been sprinkled with wet sand. Watching my mouth curl in distaste, Rehana glared at me. ‘Just wear them Mehnaz! You’ll be lucky if Taima doesn’t notice the difference.’

The sole of my chappal slapped against the stairs. It was two sizes big. We walked down the darkened stairway, holding each other’s hands for comfort, and when we finally reached down, Rehana and I ran to the bathroom to wash our faces and hands. Could guilt show itself on our faces? Would I be able to wash it out, I thought, as I rubbed my face vigorously with the Hamam soap that was kept on the soap dish.

Surprisingly, Ammi had not been curious about where I had been all evening. For once, I didn’t hear the litany that I dreaded so much – ‘Kahan thi…Kidhar thi…Kya kar rahee thi…’

The kitchen smelled gloriously of biriyani. If we were all in Vellore at the same time, Ammi always made biriyani on one day at least. Chachi of course could cook quite well too. But biriyani-making was like an obstacle race. Obstacles that Ammi cleared with utmost ease. (I had often imagined her saree-clad, holding a huge ladle, jumping over large barricades) Of course, Asifa Chachi was so petite and demure that the obstacles just collapsed all over her.

In the hot kitchen, Asifa Chachi stood next to Ammi, trying not to look like an eager pupil when Rehana walked into the kitchen, declaring that she loved my mother’s biriyani. Chachi smiled but I could see the strain as she fought to keep it pasted on her face.

‘What’s for dessert? Chachi, why don’t you make some of that chocolate pudding?’ I asked with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. She beamed. ‘Oh! There’s no cocoa powder here ma’ she said, ‘but when we return to Bangalore, I’ll definitely make some for you!’ I nodded, thankful that Ammi didn’t remind me that it was she who had given Chachi the recipe for the pudding.

Basheer’s mother, Zohra Phuppu hardly spoke. At eight o’clock, when Sadiq Chacha asked her where Basheer was, she didn’t know and she shook her head despondently. When Basheer came back, Abbu and Chacha both questioned him. ‘Kyon, mian, where were you?’ Abbu asked officiously.

Basheer stood with his head down and didn’t answer. Abbu’s face started turning red, a sure indication of his rising anger. I didn’t want Basheer to face Abbu’s ire especially on the day he had lost a kite.

‘Abbu,’ I interrupted. ‘I had sent Basheer to the market to get . . . to get some things for me,’ I said, laughing a little nervously.

‘Go have your dinner. And if I hear from your mother that you came home late again, I’ll skin you.’ Abbu said to Basheer sharply. Basheer turned around and ran away. Maybe he was going to cry. Abbu was the same man who doted on me, and yet he could inspire such terror in another. It was not a comforting thought.

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Sometimes Ammi and Chachi took Phuppu with them to Gandhi Road and forced her to buy new clothes. But Phuppu preferred her frayed sarees and Ammi and Chachi stopped taking her along. They would venture out instead to get their blouses stitched, or to see if any new jewellery designs had arrived in the shops.

Abbu and Chacha always brought clothes for Phuppu and Basheer from Bangalore each time. Once, Abbu got really angry when we arrived in Vellore and found Phuppu wearing a faded saree. Ever since then, Phuppu wore the clothes her brothers brought for her, but probably only till we stayed in Vellore. After we returned, I was sure she wore her old clothes again. Maybe they comforted her, made her believe that everything would be like how it had been, when those very clothes were new.

Rehana and I slept next to her. She had changed drastically since her husband went away. We were not supposed to talk about it, or mention the subject in front of her but we did wonder at times.

I looked at her huddled form. When life was going almost perfectly for one person, why was it all wrong for another? My happiness at coming to Vellore dissipated a little each time I saw Zohra Phuppu’s sad eyes.

Her mother-in-law was a strange woman. She hurled insults at Phuppu but was also very ingratiating whenever she saw Abbu. Abbu disliked Ammabi (we had to call her that, including Basheer, because the old woman disliked being called Dadi), and tried to ignore her.

In Abbu’s absence, Ammabi bossed us a lot. I often answered her back. Ammi always let me think I was getting away with being rude because she never scolded me right away. But after a pause, she would remind me about my manners.

Phuppu got married when I was just four or five. But a year after she gave birth to Basheer, her husband just left them and went away.

My angry father and Chacha had tried to get her to come to Bangalore but she refused adamantly. She also insisted on taking care of her foul-mouthed mother-in-law. Abbu fixed up the house that he had grown up in, and he settled Phuppu, Basheer, and Ammabi there.

I loved coming here, because this was the house which was ‘Vellore’ for me. This was where I found life to be an interminable string of events, where there was no homework, and playing with Rehana was all I did. But all this was marred forever because of Ammabi’s presence. The old woman taunted and ridiculed Phuppu, rocking her body slowly, her breath emitting nauseous fumes of snuff and sometimes Pan Parag.

‘Rehaan,’ I whispered. She shifted sleepily and squinted. The zero-watt bulb glowed dully, and I could barely distinguish Rehana’s outline as she turned towards me.

‘What?’ she whispered.

‘Do you think that boy would have found my chappals?’

She half sat up, leaning on her elbows. ‘Why?’ she asked.

‘I was just wondering whether his mother would get upset with him when she finds out he’s lost his chappals.’

‘Isn’t it too late to think about that now?’ she whispered, and slapped my arm.

‘Ouch! Ok, whatever,’ I mumbled and shut my eyes.