The kites of Jamia Milia

Every evening  I made my way past the Jamia Milia Islamia University in the magenta line metro, towards my hostel in Jasola Vihar. Once the beautiful white domes and minarets of the university are passed the metro line divides the underlying community into two sides. On my left side there are shabby apartments with daunting black water tanks on their roofs, with many other wider assortments of building stacked too close together leaving no space to breathe, each building in various states of deterioration; paints peeling down or coated with the undulating Delhi pollution, a visual testament of the clear disregard for aesthetics of the Delhites.
On the right side lives the upper class with their state of art air conditioners sputtering to cleanse out the air, sunroofs marred by exotic green plants, well-lit apartments with their beige coloured paints intact.
The first time, I sat facing the right side window, I whizzed past the mostly deserted balconies of plush apartments occasionally broken by bored looking maids watering their master's greens.
It was only the next time when I sat facing the opposite side that I understood what I was missing.
That evening as the setting sun cast its orange shades all over the sky, I saw a few kites dotting the polluted skyline of Delhi, my heart soaring at the sight of it.
Apart from the one or two kites the random kite sellers flew in beaches back home, kites were an exotic embodiment of freedom and happiness in my mind.

The hot summer evenings were taking a toll on the kite fliers but one evening the skies darkened. Heavy torrents lashed out on the searing hot earth and the trees danced to the tune of the gusty winds. It gave me a sense of being back home. I waited for the rain to subside before making the usual journey back to the hostel. With the temperatures down everyone was out enjoying the warm evening and the metro was crowded than usual. I made a point to stand facing the left side.  As the familiar announcement of approaching Jamia Milia Islamia was drowned by the humdrum of the crowd, I straightened up to scan the skyline for the kites.
And on that beautiful day, I saw thousands and thousands of kites dotting the skyline sprawling as far as the eye can see, in so many strange colours and patterns, happily dancing in the wind. Some had braided tails hanging like the pigtails of little schoolgirls, some plunging down, some soaring high and fast, some gliding smoothly calm and unperturbed, some tumbling and falling…
As though to compensate for the negligence of painting their apartments, its owners painted the sky with the soaring kites while their right-sided counterparts watched in stoic silence. I was always too far away from the building to make out the ones who flew them. Sometimes I wonder if, despite the shabby conditions in which they live in, their lives are as free and colourful as the kites they flew. I wonder what the right-sided ones do on such beautiful rain fed golden evenings. Do they dream of breaking out of their air-conditioned lives onto the sticky sweltering heat? Do they yearn of flying a kite too?