Happiest days of our lives..

14th January 2008.
I don't really remember how I've spent this day in last 8 years.

All I know, is that preceding that, it used to be the most sacred day of the year for me. It is celebrated throughout India for various different reasons, but for me, it was the grand finale of the season of kites. A day of fierce battles, a day of emotional highs and lows.

Well, kites for my place, to winter season, were what cricket is to Australian summer (Both coincide, by the way [:)] ). I don't think I've done anything more gripping ever, than spending hours and hours of my winter afternoons in sun, fiddling around with kites, fighting off the other ones in the sky. On other days, when the pocket money quota for the thing would exhaust, or mom would get tired of repeated requests, I'd experiment with whatever I have, or make new ones on my own, or do anything I could find even remotely related. Anything to make a piece of paper fly.

It was a mania that nurtured throughout the season, starting November. Two months of pure passion. It was like a preparation for big day, when there would be an open test in the sky. It was like a one day series, the learnings from which would ultimately be employed in the world cup.

I would have a sleepless night before the 'big day'. Which would be filled about thoughts of how my performance was going to be. I've been preparing hard, had learnt few good techniques, but my success rate for the season was barely 50 %, probably just slightly better in last few days. Gosh, when would I stop succumbing to pressure. When would I stop screwing up on peak time.

And then, it would happen. I would have a long day. Starting from as early as the morning starts, and ending till the time the eyes could make out anything flying against the dark sky. Having high times, when I'd score a few withing seconds, and low ones, when the air would stop, and everyone would have trouble putting up their kites in the sky. The bad ones, when I would loose many of them consecutively without scoring any. And the best ones, when mom would come over to the roof to serve Aloo paranthas, in the lovely winter sun; because we've been too ignorant of her constant calls for lunch for hours.

The day would end with a retrospection of an intensity unusual for a kid of that age, and a gloomy gaze in the sky for the one last glimpse of the colors which would disappear for, like ever.

I don't know if those were the happiest days of my life. But I could think of very few that surpassed them.

Happy Makar Sankranti !

..................