NOTES OF SY B.

Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020

The Kite Maker

BY RUSKIN BOND
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ruskin Bond is an eminent contemporary Indian writer of British

descent. He prolifically authored inspiring children‘s books and was
awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award to honor his work of literature.

Born on May 19, 1934, in Kasauli, India, he was the son of Edith Clarke
and Aubrey Bond. His father served in the Royal Air Force and
frequently moved from places to places along with his son. When he was
eight, his parents separated and his mother left him. She married to a
Punjabi-Hindu. Bond had a complicated relationship with his mother,
who was rarely there to offer him affection and they eventually grew
distant. His father‘s undivided attention helped him grow. He felt loved
and secure but his tragic departure from his life left him lonely and
broken. Following the sudden demise of his father, he moved to
Dehradun where his grandmother raised him. He received his early
education from Bishop Cotton School in Shimla. During his school years
he won several writing competitions, including the Hailey Literature
Prize and the Irwin Divinity Prize. In 1952, he completed his graduation
and moved to England and stayed at his aunt‘s house for four years.

At the age of 17 in London, he began to write his first novel, The Room
on the Roof. The novel charts the life of an orphaned Anglo-Indian
teenager. He runs away to live with his friends as he escapes the tyranny
of his strict guardian. The book has a strong autobiographical element as
it‘s based on his actual experiences living in a small rented room on the

Notes Prepared by: Dr Priya Adwani

 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
roof in Dehradun. It was not published until he was twenty-one. He was
awarded John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial prize for his first novel. Its
success gave him an impetus to write its sequel Vagrants in the Valley.

Some of other notable works of Ruskin Bond include Blue Umbrella, A

Flight of Pigeons and Funny Side Up. His works have also been adapted
for television and film. A BBC TV-series is based on his debut novel,
short story ―Susanna‘s Seven Husbands‖ was adapted into a film as 7
Khoon Maaf and film Junoon is inspired by his A Flight of Pigeons.

STORY OUTLINE

The Kite Maker is a short story by British-Indian author Ruskin Bond. In

it, an old man in rural India muses on how the world has changed while
his grandson flies a kite nearby. Bond uses nature imagery as symbols,
with an old, gnarled ( rough, and twisted, especially with age) banyan tree
standing in for the old man, while a young, spry mimosa tree represents
the vitality of the grandson.
Ali, a young Indian boy, plays with a kite as his grandfather, Mehmood,
rests under an old banyan tree, the only tree on the street. Ali‘s kite gets
caught in the tree‘s branches, and he asks his grandfather for help.
Mehmood is too old to retrieve the kite or teach Ali to fly it properly, but
he makes him another kite. Ali promises not to loose this one, and goes
off to fly it.
Mehmood sits under the banyan tree and thinks of his former profession
as a master kitemaker. In the old days, he remembers, grown men
happily flew kites. There was more open space then, and less hustle and
bustle in the town. Men would compete against each other and bet on the
outcome. Even the nawab, the local village chieftain, would come to
Notes Prepared by: Dr Priya Adwani
 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
watch. When he was a kitemaker, Mehmood had been known and
revered for his skill. Once, he had built a spectacular kite for the nawab,
one that looked like a dragon in the air. That kite was too difficult for
even Mehmood to fly, so he made the nawab a prettier, easier one.
Mehmood muses on just how much has changed since then.
The nawab is dead, and his descendants are ordinary people, just like
Mehmood. He no longer has a patron, and none of his neighbors know
him. The pace of life has changed, and those living in his village are
busy and harried. One of Mehmood‘s sons works in a local garage, and
the other is stuck in Pakistan. When India and Pakistan were made into
two separate countries, he was on the wrong side of the border and
cannot come home.
Mehmood is grateful that his other son lives nearby, as it gives him an
opportunity to see Ali, his only grandson, grow up. He enjoys watching
Ali play. Ali, he thinks, is like the mimosa sapling at the edge of the
courtyard. They are young, and will grow up tall and strong. Mehmood
is like the banyan tree he sits beneath. Both are old, stooped, their bones
and branches twisted.
Mehmood feels himself growing tired and wonders if he‘ll dream of the
kite he wants to make, one that looks like a giant white bird. He should
have something to leave Ali, he thinks. He hears Ali calling to him, but
the boy‘s voice sounds faint and far away. Ali returns to the banyan tree
and sees his grandfather, whose eyes are closed. There is a little white
butterfly resting on his beard. Ali tries to wake Mehmood, but can‘t.
Frightened, he runs away, calling for help from his mother. The butterfly
flies from Mehmood‘s beard to the mimosa tree, and Ali‘s kite suddenly
takes flight and disappears into the sky.
SUMMARY
Notes Prepared by: Dr Priya Adwani
 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
There was but one tree in the street known as Gali Ram Nathan ancient
banyan that had grown through the cracks of an abandoned mosque—
and little Ali's kite had caught in its branches. The boy, barefoot and
clad only in a torn shirt, ran along the cobbled stones of the narrow street
to where his grandfather sat nodding dreamily in the sunshine of their
back courtyard.

'Grandfather shouted the boy. 'My kite has gone!

The old man woke from his daydream with a start and, raising his head,
displayed a beard that would have been white had it not been dyed red
with mehendi leaves.

'Did the twine break?' he asked. to know that kite twine is not what it
used to be.

'No, Grandfather, the kite is stuck in the banyan tree.

The old man chuckled. 'You have yet to learn how to fly a kite properly,
my child. And I am too old to teach you, that's the pity of it. But you
shall have another.
He had just finished making a new kite from bamboo paper and thin silk,
and it lay in the sun, firming up. It was a pale pink kite, with a small
green tail. The old man handed it to Ali, and the boy raised himself on
his toes and kissed his grandfather's hollowed-out cheek.
It will not lose this one he said. 'This kite will fly like a bird. And he
turned on his heels and skipped out of the courtyard.

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 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020

The old man remained dreaming in the sun. His kite shop was gone, the
premises long since sold to a junk dealer; but he still made kites, for his
own amusement and for the benefit of his grandson, Ali. Not many
people bought kites these days. Adults disdained them, and children
preferred to spend their money at the cinema. Moreover, there were not
many open spaces left for the flying of kites. The city had swallowed up
the open grassland that had stretched from the old fort's walls to the river
bank.
But the old man remembered a time when grown men flew kites, and
great battles were fought, the kites swerving and swooping in the sky,
tangling with each other until the string of one was severed. Then the
defeated but liberated kite would float away into the blue unknown.
There was a good deal of betting, and money frequently changed hands.
Kite-flying was then the sport of kings, and the old man remembered
how the Nawab himself would come down to the riverside with his
retinue to participate in this noble pastime. There was time, then, to
spend an idle hour with a gay, dancing strip of paper. Now everyone
hurried, in a heat of hope, and delicate things like kites and daydreams
were trampled underfoot.
He, Mehmood the kitemaker, had in the prime of his life been well
known throughout the city. Some of his more elaborate kites once sold
for as much as three or four rupees each.
At the request of the Nawab he had once made a very special kind of
kite, unlike any that had been seen in the district. It consisted of a series
of small, very light paper disks trailing on a thin bamboo frame. To the
Notes Prepared by: Dr Priya Adwani
 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
end of each disk he fixed a sprig of grass, forming a balance on both
sides. The surface of the foremost disk was slightly convex, and a
fantastic face was painted on it, having two eyes made of small mirrors.
The disks, decreasing in size from head to tail, assumed an undulatory
form and gave the kite the appearance of a crawling serpent. It required
great skill to raise this cumbersome device from the ground, and only
Mehmood could manage it.
Everyone had heard of the 'Dragon Kite' that Mehmood had built, and
word went round that it possessed supernatural powers. A large crowd
assembled in the open to watch its first public launching in the presence
of the Nawab.

At the first attempt it refused to leave the ground. The disks made a
plaintive, protesting sound, and the sun was trapped in the little mirrors,
making of the kite a living, complaining creature. Then the wind came
from the right direction, and the Dragon Kite soared into the sky,
wriggling its way higher and higher, the sun still glinting in its devil-
eyes. And when it went very high, it pulled fiercely on the twine, and
Mehmood's young sons had to help him with the reel. Still the kite
pulled, determined to be free, to break loose, to live a life of its own.
And eventually it did so. The twine snapped, the kite leaped away
toward the sun, sailing on heavenward until it was lost to view. It was
never found again, and Mehmood wondered afterwards if he made too
vivid, too living a thing of the great kite. He did not make another like it.
Instead he presented to the Nawab a musical kite, one that made a sound
like a violin when it rose in the air.
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 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020

Those were more leisurely, more spacious days. But the Nawab had died
years ago, and his descendants were almost as poor as Mehmood
himself. Kitemakers, like poets, once had their patrons; but no one knew
Mehmood, simply because there were too many people in the Gali, and
they could not be bothered with their neighbours.
When Mehmood was younger and had fallen sick, everyone in the
neighbourhood had come to ask after his health; but now, when his days
were drawing to a close, no one visited him. Most of his old friends were
dead and his sons had grown up: one was working in a local garage and
the other, who was in Pakistan at the time of the Partition, had not been
able to rejoin his relatives.
The children who had bought kites from him ten years ago were now
grown men, struggling for a living; they did not have time for the old
man and his memories. They had grown up in a swiftly changing and
competitive world, and they looked at the old kitemaker and the banyan
tree with the same indifference.
Both were taken for granted—permanent fixtures that were of no
concern to the raucous, sweating mass of humanity that surrounded
them. No longer did people gather under the banyan tree to discuss their
problems and their plans; only in the summer months did a few seek
shelter from the fierce sun.
But there was the boy, his grandson. It was good that Mehmood's son
worked dose by, for it gladdened the old man's heart to watch the small
boy at play in the winter sunshine, growing under his eyes like a young
and well-nourished sapling putting forth new leaves each day. There is a
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 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
great affinity between trees and men. We grow at much the same pace, if
we are not hurt or starved or cut down. In our youth we are resplendent
creatures, and in our declining years we stoop a little, we remember, we
stretch our brittle limbs in the sun, and then, with a sigh, we shed our
last leaves.
Mehmood was like the banyan, his hands gnarled and twisted like the
roots of the ancient tree. Ali was like the young mimosa planted at the
end of the courtyard. In two years both he and the tree would acquire the
strength and confidence of their early youth.
The voices in the street grew fainter, and Mehmood wondered if he was
going to fall asleep and dream, as he so often did, of a kite so beautiful
and powerful that it would resemble the great white bird of the Hindus—
Garuda, God Vishnu's famous steed. He would like to make a wonderful
new kite for little Ali. He had nothing else to leave the boy.
He heard Ali's voice in the distance, but did not realize that the boy was
calling him. The voice seemed to come from very far away.
Ali was at the courtyard door, asking if his mother had as yet returned
from the bazaar. When Mehmood did not answer, the boy came forward
repeating his question. The sunlight was slanting across the old man's
head, and a small white butterfly rested on his flowing beard. Mehmood
was silent; and when Ali put his small brown hand on the old man's
shoulder, he met with no response. The boy heard a faint sound, like the
rubbing of marbles in his pocket.
Suddenly afraid, Ali turned and moved to the door, and then ran down
the street shouting for his mother. The butterfly left the old man's beard
and flew to the mimosa tree, and a sudden gust of wind caught the torn
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 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
kite and lifted it in the air, carrying it far above the struggling city into
the blind blue sky.

THEME OF STORY
In The Kitemaker by Ruskin Bond we have the theme of tradition,
mortality, loneliness, happiness, independence, kindness, pride and
change. Taken from his Collected Short Stories collection the story is
narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and after reading the
story the reader realises that Bond may be exploring the theme of
tradition. Mehmood once made his living form making kites. However
as he grew older there were less people looking for kites and the long
serving tradition that had made Mehmood a living eventually died out.
However it is interesting that Mehmood still perseveres with making
kites even if it is only to please his grandson Ali. What is also interesting
about the story is the fact that Bond seems to be highlighting the fact
that the landscape has changed. This may be important as symbolically
Bond may be suggesting that just as the landscape has changed or the
city has grown so too has Mehmood. Though in Mehmood‘s case he has
grown older. A new generation has come to the city and Mehmood does
not really know anyone. Where once he had visitors when he was
younger. Now Mehmood is left alone. It is as though he is unknown by
people apart from his family.
Which may be the point that Bond is attempting to make. He make be
suggesting that with old age comes loneliness. Where previously
Mehmood had been popular and known by all. Including the nawab.
This is not the case now. It would appear that Mehmood‘s days are spent
either resting or making kites for Ali. Mehmood‘s relationship with Ali
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 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
is also interesting as he seems to be exceptionally kind to him. Where
some might scorn Ali for flying his kite into the banyan tree. Mehmood
doesn‘t. Instead he gives Ali another kite to play with. It is as though
Mehmood has reached a stage where his primary focus is on making Ali
happy. It is also clear to the reader that Mehmood is proud of his
abilities when it comes to making kites. Even if some of his creations
have been a little difficult to fly. However this has never stopped
Mehmood from making kites. He has had the ability to adapt when he
has encountered difficulties with some of the kites he has made. Which
may leave some readers to suggest that Mehmood has also been able to
adapt to any changes that have occurred in his life.
Changes like having one son unable to come back home due to the
partitioning that occurred between Pakistan and India. Though
Mehmood is old he does appear to be relatively independent. There does
not seem to be anybody in the story that he is reliant on. If anything
Mehmood seems to be his own man. Something that may have come
from the fact that he had his own business making kites. If anything the
reader also gets a sense that Mehmood is enjoying his retirement. That
life is good to him even if at times it can be lonely and he may feel as
though he is forgotten about due to the changes that have occurred
around him. However Mehmood does seem to accept life on life‘s terms
particularly when he makes the comparison between the banyan and the
mimosa. Symbolically this could be important as Mehmood is
comparing himself to the older banyan tree while at the same time
realising that just as the mimosa is growing so too is Ali. It is as though
there is a cycle in life and Mehmood knows that he himself is at the end
of this cycle.

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 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020

The end of the story is also interesting as when Mehmood dies the reader
realises that he has done so peacefully. He has not been a burden on
anyone and if anything he has brought joy to people, particularly to Ali.
He has lived a full life and seen the city change before his eyes. This
could be important as Bond may be suggesting or highlighting the fact
that India was beginning to prosper at the time the story was written.
Villages became towns and towns became cities. Yet the traditions that
Mehmood had carried through from previous generations seemed to
have gotten lost as people prospered. Something that leaves the reader
wondering as to what price is there to be paid for prosperity. Change can
be good but it can also result in the traditions of the past being forgotten
about. Something which is very much the case in the story. There is
nobody left after Mehmood to make kites for Ali or for anybody else.
With Mehmood‘s death comes not only the loss of life but the loss of
tradition too. Though change is inevitable should it come at the cost of
tradition. Should the past be forgotten just as Mehmood is sure to be
forgotten.

ANSWERS

1. What was Mehmood doing when Ali woke him up?

(a) The boy, barefoot and clad only in a torn shirt, ran along the cobbled
stones of the narrow street, where his grandfather sat nodding dreamily
in the sunshine of their back courtyard. When Ali shouted that his kite
has gone, the old man woke from his daydream with a start and, raising

Notes Prepared by: Dr Priya Adwani

 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
his head, displayed a beard that would have been white had it not been
dyed red with mehendi leaves.

2. What did Mehmood do when Ali lost his kite?

(a) Mehmood felt sorry that he did not teach Ali how to fly a kite
properly. He made a new kite from bamboo paper and thin silk, it lay in
the sun, firming up. It was a pale pink kite, with a small green tail. The
old man handed it to Ali and the boy raised himself on his toes and
kissed his grandfather‘s hollowed-out cheek.

3. Why do so few people buy kites these days?

(a) Not many people bought kites these days. Adults disdained them and
children preferred to spend their money at the cinema. Moreover, There
were not many open spaces left over for flying the kites. The city had
swallowed up the open grassland that had stretched from the old fort‘s
walls to the river bank.

4. What were the various things that people did when they flew kites in
the past?
(a) Mehmood remembered a time when grown men flew kites and great
battles were fought, the kites swerving and swooping in the sky, tangling
with each other until thestring of one was severed. Then the defeated,
but liberated kite would float away intothe blue unknown. There was a
good deal of betting and money frequently changedhands.

5. What was the name of the special kite that Mehmood made at the
request of the Nawab? What happened to it?
(a) Kite flying was then the sport of kings and the old man remembered
how the Nawab himself would come down to the riverside with his

Notes Prepared by: Dr Priya Adwani

 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
entourage to participate in this noble past time. Mehmood, the kite-
maker, led his life as a well known person in the city. At the request of
Nawab, he had once made a very special kind of kite known as ‗Dragon
Kite‘ and word went around that it possessed supernatural powers. At
the first attempt it refused to leave the ground. The disks made a
plaintive, protesting sound and the sun was trapped in the little mirrors,
making the kite a living, complaining creature. Then the wind came
from the right direction and the Dragon Kite soared into the sky,
wriggling higher and higher. The sons of Mehmood helped the Nawab to
pull the kite sailing on heavenward until it lost its view. He did not make
another like it. Instead, he presented to the Nawab a musical kite, one
that made a sound like a violin when it rose in the air.

6. How many sons does Mehmood have? Where are they?

(a) Mehmood has two sons: one was working in a local garage and the
other, who was in Pakistan at the time of partition, had not been able to
rejoin his relatives.

7. Which two trees are Mehmood and Ali compared to? Is the
comparison appropriate?
(a) Mehmood was like the banyan, his hands gnarled and twisted like the
roots of the ancient tree. Ali was like the young mimosa, planted at the
end of the courtyard. In two years, both he and the tree would acquire
the strength and confidence of their early youth. There is a great affinity
between men and trees. We grow at much the same pace, if we are not
hurt or starved or cut down, in our youth we are resplendent creatures
and in our declining years we stoop a little, we remember, we stretch our
brittle limbs in the sun and then with a sigh, we shed our last leaves.

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 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
8. What does Mehmood dream of and what is it compared to?
(a) As the voices in the street grew fainter and Mehmood wondered if he
was going to fall asleep and dream, as he so often did, of a kite so
beautiful and powerful that it would resemble the great white bird of the
Hindus — Garuda, God Vishnu‘s famous steed. He would like to make a
wonderful kite for Ali, as he had nothing else to leave the boy.

9. What did Ali find when he came asking about his mother?
(a) Ali was at the courtyard door, asking if his mother had as yet
returned from the bazaar. When Mehmood did not answer, the boy came
forward repeating his question. The sunlight was slanting across the old
man‘s head and a small butterfly rested on his flowing beard. Mehmood
was silent; when Ali put his small brown hand on the old man‘s
shoulder, he met with no response. The boy heard a faint sound like the
rubbing of marbles in his pocket.

10. What happens to the kite at the very end of the story? How is the
ending related to the beginning of the story?
(a) The boy heard a faint sound, like the rubbing of marbles, in his
pocket. Suddenly afraid, Ali returns to the banyan tree and sees his
grandfather, whose eyes are closed. There isa little white butterfly
resting on his beard. Ali tries to wake Mehmood, but can‘t. Frightened,
he runs away, calling for help from his mother. The butterfly flies from
Mehmood‘s beard to the mimosa tree, and Ali‘s kite suddenly takes
flight and disappears into the sky. Bond uses nature imagery as symbols,
with an old, gnarled banyan tree standing in for the old man, while a
young, spry mimosa tree represents
the vitality of the grandson.

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 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
Comprehension ll:
Ans 1: Kite-flying was then the sport of kings, and the old man
remembered how the Nawab himself would come down to the riverside
with his retinue to participate in this noble pastime. There was time,
then, to spend an idle hour with a gay, dancing strip of paper. Now
everyone hurried, in a heat of hope, and delicate things like kites and
daydreams were trampled underfoot.
He, Mehmood the kitemaker, had in the prime of his life been well
known throughout the city. Some of his more elaborate kites once sold
for as much as three or four rupees each.
At the request of the Nawab he had once made a very special kind of
kite, unlike any that had been seen in the district. It consisted of a series
of small, very light paper disks trailing on a thin bamboo frame. To the
end of each disk he fixed a sprig of grass, forming a balance on both
sides. The surface of the foremost disk was slightly convex, and a
fantastic face was painted on it, having two eyes made of small mirrors.
The disks, decreasing in size from head to tail, assumed an undulatory
form and gave the kite the appearance of a crawling serpent. It required
great skill to raise this cumbersome device from the ground, and only
Mehmood could manage it.
Everyone had heard of the 'Dragon Kite' that Mehmood had built, and
word went round that it possessed supernatural powers. A large crowd
assembled in the open to watch its first public launching in the presence
of the Nawab.

Notes Prepared by: Dr Priya Adwani

 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020

Ans 2: The Kite Maker is a short story by British-Indian author Ruskin

Bond. In it, an old man in rural India muses on how the world has
changed while his grandson flies a kite nearby. Bond uses nature
imagery as symbols, with an old, gnarled banyan tree standing in for the
old man, while a young, spry mimosa tree represents the vitality of the
grandson.
Ali, a young Indian boy, plays with a kite as his grandfather, Mehmood,
rests under an old banyan tree, the only tree on the street. Ali‘s kite gets
caught in the tree‘s branches, and he asks his grandfather for help.
Mehmood is too old to retrieve the kite or teach Ali to fly it properly, but
he makes him another kite. Ali promises not to loose this one, and goes
off to fly it.
Mehmood sits under the banyan tree and thinks of his former profession
as a master kitemaker. In the old days, he remembers, grown men
happily flew kites. There was more open space then, and less hustle and
bustle in the town. Men would compete against each other and bet on the
outcome. Even the nawab, the local village chieftain, would come to
watch. When he was a kitemaker, Mehmood had been known and
revered for his skill. Once, he had built a spectacular kite for the nawab,
one that looked like a dragon in the air. That kite was too difficult for
even Mehmood to fly, so he made the nawab a prettier, easier one.
Mehmood muses on just how much has changed since then.
The nawab is dead, and his descendants are ordinary people, just like
Mehmood. He no longer has a patron, and none of his neighbors know
him. The pace of life has changed, and those living in his village are
busy and harried. One of Mehmood‘s sons works in a local garage, and
Notes Prepared by: Dr Priya Adwani
 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
the other is stuck in Pakistan. When India and Pakistan were made into
two separate countries, he was on the wrong side of the border and
cannot come home.
Mehmood is grateful that his other son lives nearby, as it gives him an
opportunity to see Ali, his only grandson, grow up. He enjoys watching
Ali play. Ali, he thinks, is like the mimosa sapling at the edge of the
courtyard. They are young, and will grow up tall and strong. Mehmood
is like the banyan tree he sits beneath. Both are old, stooped, their bones
and branches twisted.
Mehmood feels himself growing tired and wonders if he‘ll dream of the
kite he wants to make, one that looks like a giant white bird. He should
have something to leave Ali, he thinks. He hears Ali calling to him, but
the boy‘s voice sounded faint and far away. Ali returns to the banyan
tree and sees his grandfather, whose eyes are closed. There is a little
white butterfly resting on his beard. Ali tries to wake Mehmood, but
can‘t. Frightened, he runs away, calling for help from his mother. The
butterfly flies from Mehmood‘s beard to the mimosa tree, and Ali‘s kite
suddenly takes flight and disappears into the sky.
Ans 3: Follow ans 1 & 2
Ans 4: like the old banyan tree, Memhood is old and fixed in his life.
Both cannot move from the boundary within which they grew and thus
cannot find their significance in the modern ‗competitive world’– ‗Both
were taken for granted—permanent fixtures that were of no concern to
the raucous, sweating mass of humanity that surrounded
them.’ Mehmood, therefore, associates himself with the great banyan
tree as he apprehends the underlying relationship between man and
nature. Mehmood, old and fragile is like the ancient tree shedding its last
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 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
few leaves while his grandson Ali, budding with new life is like a
mimosa plant. Thus, as Mehmood sleeps into his last day dream he finds
hope in his grandson Ali and dreams of making him a beautiful kite
that “would resemble the great white bird of the Hindus—Garuda, God
Vishnu’s famous steed.” The ‗Garuda‘ imagery brings intensity and
pace in the story as we not only see Mehmood sweeping into his
beautiful old world along with it and free him forever from all the
indifference of modern decadent world but the readers are left to believe
it as a as a ray of hope for the young generation to tear themselves out of
the ‗sweating mass’ like the kite in the banyan tree.

Ans 5: Mehmood is grateful that his other son lives nearby, as it gives
him an opportunity to see Ali, his only grandson, grow up. He enjoys
watching Ali play. Ali, he thinks, is like the mimosa sapling at the edge
of the courtyard. They are young, and will grow up tall and strong.
Mehmood is like the banyan tree he sits beneath. Both are old, stooped,
their bones and branches twisted.
Mehmood feels himself growing tired and wonders if he‘ll dream of the
kite he wants to make, one that looks like a giant white bird. He should
have something to leave Ali, he thinks. He hears Ali calling to him, but
the boy‘s voice sounded faint and far away. Ali returns to the banyan
tree and sees his grandfather, whose eyes are closed. There is a little
white butterfly resting on his beard. Ali tries to wake Mehmood, but
can‘t. Frightened, he runs away, calling for help from his mother. The
butterfly flies from Mehmood‘s beard to the mimosa tree, and Ali‘s kite
suddenly takes flight and disappears into the sky.

Notes Prepared by: Dr Priya Adwani

 NOTES OF SY B.Com Sem IV WRITTEN & Spoken Communication Skills 19-2020
Ans 6: Follow ans 1 & 2

Notes Prepared by: Dr Priya Adwani