How to fly a kite and claim empires of the sky

Under a gloomy sky, after a night and a day of sudden spells of rain, it's evening. From my window, I see a kid loitering around on a nearby terrace, a kite in his hand. He stands close to the edge and staring out at the huge expanse of the sky, uncertain of the rain that might arrive of the clouds and spoil his conquest of the sky. He sees birds flying out towards the west, he wonders why there are fewer birds and kites flying above the city.

He's engrossed in his thoughts, he doesn't spot the envious eyes of anyone observing him. He carefully measures out the string that will link him to the endless possibilities of the sky, the inverted blue ultra marine that flickers and changes shape; he heaves and tugs for the kite to raise its wings and soar away.

But the kite refuses to budge.

With each tug, it lifts its head, only to dive down, like the melancholy that dives deep down inside you every time you think of your childhood. The kid untangles the strings and starts afresh. Call it persistence!

I try to attract attention. I will be screaming out the directions to him, I think. "Hey, you've to feel the wind, even if it's a slight breeze. And then you've to learn how to tug, not too hard, not too soft for less than three seconds, and then you've got to lift the kite in a series of hard and quick pulls..."

But visibility is a mirage, you are visible only if the other person thinks that you exist. And you're audible only after that.

The distance separating my window and his terrace is considerable, measured not only in terms of years and realisations, but actual moments, imaginings, and a geographical distance of about 300 meters. From the terrace, even if he allows me to speak to him, he will be seeing a host of half-closed darkened windows of a dozen apartments and houses, all too self-engrossed.

The kid doesn't see me.

I keep watching him until the evening turns to dusk, and it's too dark for me to spot even his silhouette. It's a moment of pain, but it's also a moment of realisation the Marcus Aurelius way, confining yourself to the present. Every kid learns the little facts of life the hard way, experience always works in retrospect: "Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too."