The kite flying festival began on Makar Sankranti, and it’s now the season as much for flying high as for cutting short.
‘Kai Po Che’ is familiar in the western parts of India as the unofficial anthem of the kite flying season | Shutterstock
'Kai Po Che' won fame as the award-winning film starring the late lamented Sushant Singh Rajput. But long before the movie was even a gleam in the producer’s lens, ‘Kai Po Che’ was familiar in the western parts of India as the unofficial anthem of the kite flying season. You may think it is sung in praise of the joyous sight of gaily-coloured kites covering the skies as paper and string soar over wind and gravity to consort with the clouds.
Sigh! The reality is little more mundane, and a lot more malicious. 'Kai Po Che' is Gujarati for ‘It’s been cut!’ It tells the world that the twine which held your high-flying possession has been cut and the kite is currently up for grabs for any number of rag-tag teams roaming the streets to pounce on strays. The way the words are sung crows victory into your ears, carries derision about your plight and heaps salt on your wounded pride.
For many, this is ‘mission accomplished’. As a people, we seem to love cutting more than flying. While kite flying may be a seasonal affair, cutting is a year-round sport, ingrained in our culture and expressing itself in various ways. Mumbai’s preferred street beverage, for instance, is ‘Cutting’. Served in a sturdy shot glass, it is widely believed to be the secret of the city’s amazing go-getting spirit. At another level, we also cut in ahead of this alien arrangement called ‘queues’. Long lines tax our patience, and it obviously makes eminent good sense to cut in ahead of people who are patiently, dutifully and dumbly waiting their turn.
We also like to cut into each other arguments. The most entertaining part of any televised debate in fact, is to see how participants cut into each other’s speeches, and an angst-ridden anchor cuts them all to size. Cuts were frequent in Bollywood cinema of an earlier vintage. The Board of Film Censors – as keen a bunch of scissor-wielding spoilsports as you would ever know – used to cut the more juicy scenes of films, leaving large numbers of the audience feeling sorely cheated. Things have changed now. We lighten the censors’ responsibility by taking matters into our own hands. If we do not approve of a scene, song or title, we simply threaten to cut loose. Filmmakers – sweet and reasonable souls as it turns out, fall over each other to do our bidding.
It is of course in the blood sport called business that ‘the cut’ comes into its own. The scams starring Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi et al couldn’t have taken shape if bank and sundry company officials had not been in on the cut. They are continuing a long and lucrative tradition of under-the-table commerce. Long before Bofors hit the headlines, there was Jayanti Dharm Teja and Haridas Mundhra who wrote the opening lines for the scam saga of free India.
Even before Indian industry could get into the act, however, there was the original baron of booty Robert Clive who proved once and for all that the purse is mightier than the sword. It takes two to tango, and Clive had willing Mir Jafars to complete the equation – as did our original parents in the Garden of Eden. But Adam appeared at a loss for words when confronted by the Almighty about the fruit cut from the Tree of Knowledge. If only he and his companion had moved east from Eden, he would have known exactly what to say: ‘Kai Po Che!’
PS: Surely it can’t be a coincidence that Budget Day falls just a fortnight after Makar Sankranti. Ms Nirmala Sitharaman must know that it is the proximity of the dates which prompts the nation’s middle class to plead for cuts all around – in duties, taxes and red tape. No mean kite flyer herself, Nirmala Seetharaman could turn the tables and cut those very subsidies and grants that make life livable for many. That, you will agree, would be the unkindest cut of all.
