Pulling the strings on kite-flying: Whether literally or idiomatically, the patang has its own airs

Narendra Modi inaugurated Uttarayan, the International Kite Festival in Ahmedabad on Monday, with German chancellor Friedrich Merz in tow, the two pulling on a giant Bajrang Bali patang together. Which is a good time to investigate the high art of kite-flying. There are two kinds of kite-flyers: those who actually hold a string, and those who hold nothing but hot air. But both are united by the same noble pursuit: getting something aloft and displaying control. Literal kite-flying is tricky enough. Wind, that fickle anarchist, decides whether you're a triumphant aviator, or a confused person trying to make paper fly. Children cheer, dogs bark, and somewhere a tree awaits to trap your masterpiece. Idiomatic kite-flying is the corporate cousin: floating ideas so flimsy, they make tissue paper look like reinforced steel. 'What if we replace lunch breaks with mandatory mindfulness?' is one such cutty patang. The beauty lies not in the idea itself, but in watching it wobble in the breeze of scepticism.

So, let's celebrate kite-flying - literal kite-flying that gives us tangled strings; idiomatic kite-flying that gives us doomed proposals. Together, they remind us that life is less about control than about spectacle. After all, what's existence if not one long attempt to keep a fragile kite aloft while pretending we meant it to dive into the hedge?