It swooped and dived and juddered
taking to the sky like a great bird
its tail ripping across the blue board.
Then a rival’s sharp starched thread
spiteful with ground glass, cut—

I remember Bombay summers,
my brothers and twenty others
chasing one severed kite. ‘Patang gul!’
How differently it moved once cut free,
its arrogance lost on the wind.
Face down, tail dragging, wafting
listlessly to earth—humiliated
by its untimely freedom.