why i became a kite

One of my favorite Kolkata scenes is the varied rooftops of the flats making patterns against the after-sundown sky. The air around you is dark, and it feels like night, but you look up and see that the sky is still holding onto the light. This seems to be "the hour of the kites." Boys on tip toe fly their paper creations from cement playgrounds. Last week was also the kite festival. It happened while we were in Darjeeling and I was dissapointed to miss it, as the familiar kites are such a beautiful past time. Each time I see one I am reminded of my choice to be here. I see in the kites the same paradox I have discovered in Kolkata- being tied down, inescapably grounded, and yet free from the earth, flying inexplicably above all things solid. Bound to the dirt and to an aching heart, and yet finding there can be nothing deeper, nothing that loosens more your binding self. Sometimes I look up at the birds, and I want to rise above the city and fly on home. Kolkata "wears its brokeness on the outside" as I've been told. The worst part of it is that here, I too wear my brokeness on the outside. If you want to stop being a white washed tomb, move to Kolkata. You will face your decay as you meet the desperate. You will realize how desperate for love and affirmation you are when you meet the decay. The poet Joseph Brodsky wrote, "what I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness." When you choose not to escape, not to run away to a place where you can forget, or at least self-medicate through various vices, you begin to see truth in its most basic and eloquent form. Truth without the trappings of striving to be relevant or holding onto the old ways. Truth outside of culture and economics. Truth so beautifully alive in its simplicity, that you remember Jesus, and even though his journey is alot scarier than you've noticed before, it's also a way of peace. I know I'm not the only one starving for peace... peace to set prostituted women on an exodus. Peace to stop children from being the soldiers in someone else's war. Peace to stop husbands from beating wives. Peace to end the genocide in Darfur. I was hoping to rediscover at least a little bit of this, as it's been swallowed up by doubts and questions lately. I wanted to know what it felt like to be free here, but not to escape and fly away. I think I am just staring to understand, in this otherwise insignificant moment. You might say I've had my own kite festival.