On Having a Kite Mind 🪁

Choosing the memory and metaphor of kites over the 'official' diagnosis of ADHD

Dear reader,
I did not know when I would be ready to share this essay with you. It was conceived over a year ago, in a writing group that makes me want to fly. But I was scared to fly too high, and kept it safe in the drafts.

Not logic, not preparation, not confidence, but a single white kite, soaring in the sky this morning, inspired me to publish it today.

So here goes:

On Having a Kite Mind

Choosing the memories and metaphor of kites over the 'official' diagnosis of ADHD

1999 🪁

Sankrant in Nagpur. I go kite shopping with my friends. Joy is so cheap. For three rupees, we get a sweet purple rhombus with yellow sleeves. For five, a sharp green diamond with golden stickies and a red triangle on top, almost like a parrot looking up. The delicate paper is supported by 2 spines - one straight and one bent. And the tails - either a neat triangle or fluttering paper frills. You can guess which kind I like.

I am the youngest, an assistant kite pilot. My duties include jumping up with the kite for a successful launch, holding the maanja roll, and bringing cooked rice from home to help senior pilots perform emergency kite surgery. To see torn, rice-fed kites rise and twirl is to see a miracle.

Over the next few years, school work takes over and I forget the skies exist, forget kites.

2015 🪁

Sankrant in Ahmedabad. It’s like Holi in the sky. People don’t leave their terraces even at night. We launch Chinese lanterns to make Diwali in the sky. I am once again an assistant, fascinated by how we love to make things fly as a species.

2019 🪁

A posh locality in Bandra. A clinical psychologist charges 11,000 rupees to confirm my suspicion. I have ADHD.

My mind, it turns out, is a kite. It tends to take off and meander while my body is stuck in a meeting or a yoga pose. Maybe other minds are more like arrows or plants or pencils, sure of their direction, I wouldn’t know.

It’s a joy to have a kite mind. I can soar high, cruising across the hills of thoughts, gliding next to the clouds of intellect. I can move in ways my body can’t, flying fast into imaginary worlds and dancing with philosophical questions, escaping the drudgery of being on the ground, where tasks must be completed, clothes folded, bills paid.

But it’s hard when the kite mind gets stuck in the telephone wires of despair. It’s lovely to meet kites of other colours, but terrible when the maanja of comparison rubs and my kite sinks and drowns into a puddle of self-pity. Meanwhile, buckets overflow, milk boils over, and the page remains blank.

The uncertain future of a kite mind 🪁

The kite mind loves an open sky. But when it’s trapped in a mall, in a capitalistic setup, how high can it fly before it lands up in a shop? Will it be trashed? Will it sell? Will it still be mine if it gets sold?

All I can do is tug at it with my breath. A kite doesn’t care about its kite runner, but it understands the language of air, the grammar of breathing. Breath by breath, it will leave the mall, and write on the sky.

Dedicated to all the kite-minded writers who met me up here in the sky and made me feel less crazy, more gifted. 💖

Thanks,

Gargi Sen

for the wondrous prompt, and

Natasha Badhwar

for helping me enjoy my kite-ness.

Thanks,

Priyanka Sacheti

for gifting me a little paper kite before it became a liberating symbol for me.

Thanks,

Emily Stoddard

for insisting on new metaphors for ADHD.

Thanks, to you, dear reader for reading this piece of my heart.

Love,

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