describe mahmood's dragon kite. how did it fly?
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In the world of Children’s Literature, Ruskin Bond is one name whose simplicity of prose and ingenuity of imaginationcan fascinate the mind of any child reader. To begin with, his stories are as simple as the mind that reads it, his imagery sketching a vivid and colorful canvas as you turn the pages, his descriptions more like a picture in the storybook that at no point gets dull and similar. The beauty of reading Bond is that one doesn’t have to struggle at every line with its vocabulary and as the reading is quite unhindered one can enjoy the story rather than diverting the attention every now and then towards the dictionary, thus, unconsciously enhancing the vocabulary, literary and creative aptitude of the child.
A Short Synopsis:
The Kitemaker is one of the most famous stories of Ruskin Bond. The story begins with Mehmood’s grandson Ali, bringing his grandfather, the old kite maker out of his reverie as the boy’s kite gets struck in the branches of the ancient banyan tree. As he sees his grandchild learning to play with the kite, old Mehmood retrospect about his good old days and laments the loss of ‘the self’ in the tide of ‘swiftly changing’ culture of modern Indian society. Day dreaming under the old banyan tree, he reminiscences his past when he was a revered ‘kitemaker’ in his city and the art of kite flying was the sports of the kings,“Kite-flying was then the sport of kings, and the old man remembered how the Nawab himself would come down to the riverside with his retinue to participate in this noble pastime.” Those days of leisure and gay are gone as men today, caught in the whirlpool of sweeping time, had no time and interest for such pastimes like kite flying. Even the children liked to spend their money in cinema. Moving with the ‘sweating mass of humanity’ the city has lost all grace and the ‘gali’no more has any open fields left for flying kites but only narrow lanes and jeopardized cement structures. The indifferent attitude of his neighbours shows the decadence of culture and humanity in their run for money. That his kite shop is taken by a junk dealer further signifies it.
But like the old banyan tree, Memhood is old and fixed in his life. Both cannot move from the boundary within which they grew and thus cannot find their significance in the modern ‘competitive world’– ‘Both were taken for granted—permanent fixtures that were of no concern to the raucous, sweating mass of humanity that surrounded them.’ Mehmood, therefore, associates himself with the great banyan tree as he apprehends the underlying relationship between man and nature. Mehmood, old and fragile is like the ancient tree shedding its last few leaves while his grandson Ali, budding with new life is like a mimosa plant. Thus, as Mehmood sleeps into his last day dream he finds hope in his grandson Ali and dreams of making him a beautiful kite that “would resemble the great white bird of the Hindus—Garuda, God Vishnu’s famous steed.” The ‘Garuda’ imagery brings intensity and pace in the story as we not only see Mehmood sweeping into his beautiful old world along with it and free him forever from all the indifference of modern decadent world but the readers are left to believe it as a as a ray of hope for the young generation to tear themselves out of the ‘sweating mass’ like the kite in the banyan tree.
The Kitemaker (Story)
THERE WAS BUT ONE tree in the street known as Gali Ram Nathan ancient banyan that had grown through the cracks of an abandoned mosque—and little Ali’s kite had caught in its branches. The boy, barefoot and clad only in a torn shirt, ran along the cobbled stones of the narrow street to where his grandfather sat nodding dreamily in the sunshine of their back courtyard.
‘Grandfather shouted the boy. ‘My kite has gone!
The old man woke from his daydream with a start and, raising his head, displayed a beard that would have been white had it not been dyed red with mehendi leaves.
‘Did the twine break?’ he asked. To know that kite twine is not what it used to be.
‘No, Grandfather, the kite is stuck in the banyan tree.
The old man chuckled. ‘You have yet to learn how to fly a kite properly, my child. And I am too old to teach you, that’s the pity of it. But you shall have another.
He had just finished making a new kite from bamboo paper and thin silk, and it lay in the sun, firming up. It was a pale pink kite, with a small green tail. The old man handed it to Ali, and the boy raised himself on his toes and kissed his grandfather’s hollowed-out cheek.
T will not lose this one he said. ‘This kite will fly like a bird. And he turned on his heels and skipped out of the courtyard.
A Short Synopsis:
The Kitemaker is one of the most famous stories of Ruskin Bond. The story begins with Mehmood’s grandson Ali, bringing his grandfather, the old kite maker out of his reverie as the boy’s kite gets struck in the branches of the ancient banyan tree. As he sees his grandchild learning to play with the kite, old Mehmood retrospect about his good old days and laments the loss of ‘the self’ in the tide of ‘swiftly changing’ culture of modern Indian society. Day dreaming under the old banyan tree, he reminiscences his past when he was a revered ‘kitemaker’ in his city and the art of kite flying was the sports of the kings,“Kite-flying was then the sport of kings, and the old man remembered how the Nawab himself would come down to the riverside with his retinue to participate in this noble pastime.” Those days of leisure and gay are gone as men today, caught in the whirlpool of sweeping time, had no time and interest for such pastimes like kite flying. Even the children liked to spend their money in cinema. Moving with the ‘sweating mass of humanity’ the city has lost all grace and the ‘gali’no more has any open fields left for flying kites but only narrow lanes and jeopardized cement structures. The indifferent attitude of his neighbours shows the decadence of culture and humanity in their run for money. That his kite shop is taken by a junk dealer further signifies it.
But like the old banyan tree, Memhood is old and fixed in his life. Both cannot move from the boundary within which they grew and thus cannot find their significance in the modern ‘competitive world’– ‘Both were taken for granted—permanent fixtures that were of no concern to the raucous, sweating mass of humanity that surrounded them.’ Mehmood, therefore, associates himself with the great banyan tree as he apprehends the underlying relationship between man and nature. Mehmood, old and fragile is like the ancient tree shedding its last few leaves while his grandson Ali, budding with new life is like a mimosa plant. Thus, as Mehmood sleeps into his last day dream he finds hope in his grandson Ali and dreams of making him a beautiful kite that “would resemble the great white bird of the Hindus—Garuda, God Vishnu’s famous steed.” The ‘Garuda’ imagery brings intensity and pace in the story as we not only see Mehmood sweeping into his beautiful old world along with it and free him forever from all the indifference of modern decadent world but the readers are left to believe it as a as a ray of hope for the young generation to tear themselves out of the ‘sweating mass’ like the kite in the banyan tree.
The Kitemaker (Story)
THERE WAS BUT ONE tree in the street known as Gali Ram Nathan ancient banyan that had grown through the cracks of an abandoned mosque—and little Ali’s kite had caught in its branches. The boy, barefoot and clad only in a torn shirt, ran along the cobbled stones of the narrow street to where his grandfather sat nodding dreamily in the sunshine of their back courtyard.
‘Grandfather shouted the boy. ‘My kite has gone!
The old man woke from his daydream with a start and, raising his head, displayed a beard that would have been white had it not been dyed red with mehendi leaves.
‘Did the twine break?’ he asked. To know that kite twine is not what it used to be.
‘No, Grandfather, the kite is stuck in the banyan tree.
The old man chuckled. ‘You have yet to learn how to fly a kite properly, my child. And I am too old to teach you, that’s the pity of it. But you shall have another.
He had just finished making a new kite from bamboo paper and thin silk, and it lay in the sun, firming up. It was a pale pink kite, with a small green tail. The old man handed it to Ali, and the boy raised himself on his toes and kissed his grandfather’s hollowed-out cheek.
T will not lose this one he said. ‘This kite will fly like a bird. And he turned on his heels and skipped out of the courtyard.
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