Day 137

Up on the roof of our Jaipur hotel, the afternoon sun slides towards a bustling skyline. It’s hypnotic, my eyes skip from building to building, watching a mirage of winged shapes. Yet, what the blazes are these things, some sort of bird? A bird of prey maybe, with grace and balance hovering over the city, watching it. But nah, this city has very little bird song, only the thud of classic thumper engines, moooo of cow clamour, oh, and beep of a hundred horns honking. I look out into the smog of rose-coloured city blocks, then from a neighbouring rooftop another form rises, and I realise what these riddles are – kites! 

Yes, hundreds of kites, hundreds of swooping and diving patterned kites. The city of Jaipur sits cocooned by low mountains, with its squat residential blocks knitted together to fill its flat-bellied basin bed. Perfect for collecting the winds.

“Welcome, you like the kites?” Our host greets us, eyes following my gaze, he carries a tray of masala chai tea. He has a kind round face, skin textured like an almond nut and teeth tinged by tobacco. 

“Thank you, yes, so many, I thought they were birds,” I say, accepting my cup of chai and bowing my head in thanks. I bring the potion to my lips and breathe in its sweet milky spices. 

“Not birds but festival kites. Do you fly?” He says while surveying the sky. His eyes flick once and then twice to a distant kite that glimmers purple and gold in the sunlight. 

Wiggy used to fly kites as a child, he would venture outdoors with his brother and unleash a very long and very complicated twin-control snake. I only have vague memories of southern coasts, white cliffs and tangled strings. We say so and watch our host’s amicable face sag slightly as he watches the glimmering kite, which appears to be stripped like a tiger. It moves differently from the others, it spirals, arches and swoops like it were controlling and not controlled by the direction of the wind.

“You have focus, you do not waste time. Every year the city fills with kites at this time, my children vanish, days go by and I do not see my daughter. At least I can watch her kite…” He sounds sad but goes on to explain that from a young age, the children of the city are taught how to fly kites. They learn how to ride updrafts, sense air currents, and copy the birds. It’s supposed to be a festival for families, one to connect people.

“It sounds like a good thing,” I say, confused by his downcast tone.

“Yes, for the main part. There’s a big competition to celebrate the best of them at the fort. If you go, you will see,” he sombrely smiles, then adds, “and go by two wheels, it gets busy.”  

Despite travelling with our motorcycle helmets and jackets, I explain that we are still waiting for our bikes to be imported into India, so cannot ride. 

“Very well, you must hire one. A long time it takes to reach the fort by car, the only way is by two wheels.” He smiles in a now business-like manner and flashes his yellow teeth.

Quite sure we could catch a lift in a rickshaw and get there for very little cost, meanwhile it’s 1200 rupees to rent a bike for the day, but… we get a new experience, so alright, we hire a Royal Enfield Classic 350. As we wait on the roof, we hear her being started up, she sounds like a strangled cow at first, very reluctant and very congested. I wonder when she was last run. As we wait I lean on the railings and watch the golden tiger kite.

Most of the kites in the sky are square or rectangle constructions, sometimes a single block of colour fills their frames, and sometimes a motif of two colours are teamed together. But the tiger kite is constructed from a vivid purple fabric and embossed with motifs of shimmering gold stripes, she’s diamond in shape and also sports a beautiful tail of gold. The lines of these kites are sometimes invisible, depending on which angle you glimpse them at, but I swear, the tiger kite has no string. I watch her for a good five minutes as our hire bike warms up, and not once can I detect a tether.

“Ready,” our host calls up, “now, watch out for cows, cars, rickshaws, scooters… and kites, and drive slowly.”

We pull on our jackets, buckle up our helmets, and inspect the Classic 350. Locate the choke switch, check the controls, lights, brakes, petrol or lack of, and tyres. With a twist of the throttle, test her single cylinder and straight-through pipe, and getting seated, consider her suspension and plentiful sag. She’s a heavy girl who chugs like a tractor, from the back, I can feel that she’s spongy and sluggish, yet reliable. 

Wiggy sets off and we trundle over the lumpy alleyway toward a bigger dirt road. The golden tiger kite seems much closer now, I glimpse it soaring between the gaps of buildings and floating over the tops of the street temples we pass. As our path gradually climbs, I keep half an eye on what seems to be our golden guide and half an eye on the road. We wriggle past a dozen rickshaws, swerve through the casual cows sauntering the streets, and dodge slow-moving vegetable carts. 

Soon the network of intertwining back streets open up and a dusty highway leads us to the fort’s mountain pass, where things get dicey. Kite tethers float across the road like trip ropes, then there are the innumerable potholes, the blind corners and the fearless overtakes. A taxi emerges from a blind corner on the wrong side of the road as it overtakes a rickshaw, at the same time, a cow decides to cross the road and the taxi steers towards us to avoid the cow. We bump onto the gravel hard shoulder, miss the taxi, cow and rickshaw and find ourselves miraculously back on tarmac.

Although the level of crazy has definitely peaked, luckily, most of these vehicles are so underpowered and slow it’s hard to actually collide. We pass only one overturned rickshaw before safely arriving at the fort.

“You ride pillion next time,” I humour, dismount, laugh and breathe. 

We’ve pulled up at an apparent viewpoint. Dusk is settling about us, making the city look like a rosy smudge pinpricked by hazy white lights. There are hundreds of scooters and motorcycles parked here, on this rocky and dust sprawled lay-by, meanwhile, an increasing number of pedestrians fill the road. Numerous people stand in groups and stare out at the darkening city, while hundreds of others make their way to the fort, filling the road and rendering it almost inaccessible for the taxis. 

“Did you see where that kite went?”, Wiggy asks. 

I know he’s talking about the golden tiger kite, but no, it seems to have vanished. However, upon the fort walls, I see a lineup of flamboyant kites flying. The best of them? My eyes flick around and absorb their colours flashing against the dusky horizon, but really, I’m only looking for our golden tiger kite.

It’s getting dark now, in an hour or so the city will light up again but this time with fireworks to celebrate the turning of the new year. We begin to walk back to the Classic 350 but notice a roadside shrine. This shrine honours a female deity, her representation is cast in white marble and is seated serenely in the centre of a spherical sanctum. Golden decorations surround her and drapes of colourful purple fabric soften her reside. The outside of the shrine has been white-washed in layers of thick paint, and from its spiked altar, a kite trails up towards the heavens. 

With a graceful flutter and a glimmer of golden tiger stripes, this kite moves differently from the others. She spirals, arches and swoops as if transcended with the wind currents surrounding her.