Manja!

“Uncle, you have double chain?”
The walk into the gulleys was full of excitement and anticipation. No cars could really go in there, and that secret location added to the whole promise of finding a manja that would reign supreme over that of other people. Kite flying and crossing your thread with others in combat was what I dreamed of everyday, and the consequence, not surprisingly, was my kite winning.

“No beta, it will be here next week.” The gentle old man made his own kites, and had the best stock of manja in the area. He had said that last week too, in fact I had started wondering about the existence of this mystical thread that we had heard about – the next task was to choose one which had a good feel to the fingers and seemed thin enough for my defensive kite flying. It was known that there were two popular styles of kite combat, if I may call it that – one being a defensive strategy in which you can loosen your kite to move with the wind till you cut the competitors thread; the other more advanced attacking technique was to start pulling your kite back with all the speed you could muster. I knew I wasn’t good enough on speed to carry out the second one and it was a sure shot way to failure. And people who could do that were my true heroes.

“Uncle, where is this manja made?”
“Arrey, it’s from Bareli. They make the best manja!”
I knew he was going to say that. It was the same answer, but one had to hear that before you bought that manja. Everyone knew Bareli made the best, it was one the unchallenged facts of life. With the right amount of glass powder on the string to give it the right cutting powers - too much glass and the thread became brittle, too little was not sharp enough. So the thread was bought and covered up in paper to keep it dry for the most important day coming up – 15th of August. That was the day which would be climax of the whole kite flying season.

Sleep on the night of the 14th was not too good because of the frequent prayers for good wind and absence of rain next morning. Somehow the night passed and we got up in the morning and went up to the terrace to check the wind. Uncannily, it was always a beautiful day! And to top it all, the wind was eastward – which would mean more and more kites around ours to challenge and defeat!
As soon you cross your manja with the other’s, you would most likely know who was going to win. It was a question of vantage positions before the kill, much like real combat. If you let him catch you in a spot that had less wind flow, you were going down for sure. You also had to watch out for knots in your string, because they were the weakest link in your chain – of course you could always blame it on that. There were certain ethics too, like business. Attacking someone’s thread very close to his hand was called a hattha – a huge financial liability for him as he would most likely lose all his special thread. The day had its ups and downs, with wins and failures.

That day on the 15th of August, when my kite was flying free in the blues of the sky, I had felt joys that come by rarely in a lifetime.
It was peaceful war.

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Photo from flickr.com user Birds of Passage.

How to be better at whatever you do: (In life, the universe and everything)

Recently I have discovered that the tools I use for improving one skill are almost (if not completely) transferrable to another activity. Given that I have never revealed something like the theory of relativity in my blog anyway, this is midly surprising. So if there is one thing that you are trying to be better at, anything ranging from cricket to relationships to creativity, reading further would not be a waste of time.

I owe this revelation to my love hate relationship with music, and I call it love hate because of my amazements and disappointments at the same. However, that is a different story which I shall write about some other day. These are some pointers I have learnt in the practice of music which help me learn or improve almost anything that comes my way. In my case, this other art is badminton, just to show how different it can be.

1. Absorb Cultural and traditional knowledge: Trust me when I say that what you are trying to do has been done before. Atleast significant work about the same. Make sure you have read/watched/observed how other people have handled the same thing. Wireless network on? Go Google. Talk to people. Go to the library.

2. Feedback: One thing I have found helpful is to watch yourself as a third person. An objective evaluation is absolutely necessary and this can come only from you. In continuation to this, working on your weakest links (from above honest observation) in a focussed manner helps. Staying in denial does not.

3. Planned and Slow: Be it cricket or music, beauty in execution is being slow and exact in your moves. What is your next move? Think, prepare to execute and boom! Practice this and it becomes habit.

4. Think out of the box: After you have mastered 1 2 and 3, start thinking about how you could redefine. Disclaimer: Note that jumping to step 4 is a sure shot self destruct button in most cases. You have to think inside the box before you decide to move out of it. However, if you very confident you are a genius(and many people have told you the same), please go ahead at your own risk.

Try it.