Passion and Flying

As a young kid, I used to dream of flying. The great stories of Leonardo da Vinci and the Wright brothers inspired me to believe that one day, it would be possible for me to fly like a bird. And I took myself to great limits to try and achieve this.

 

Around 1993, when I must have been in the third or fourth grade, we'd recently installed cable television at home and I would spend time watching cartoons as well as other science programs. It was then that I noticed gliders and parachutes. The shear simplicity of the design took me by surprise. For my own enjoyment, I would take a small stone, tie it around a hanky and throw up in the air and watch it fall in a slow and balanced manner. Years later, I finally understood that this phenomenon is called terminal velocity.

 

Throwing stones and hankies around soon stopped becoming fun. So I started to take umbrellas of different sizes and jump from different heights but it was all very discouraging. Either the umbrellas would flip upside down too fast or nothing exciting would happen. I surely needed to try more than jumping. This was when I decided that I had to make my own glider. I had to wait in front of the TV to learn about gliders. During that time, libraries were not very accessible and the internet was unheard of so it wasn't that easy to come across information. I did manage to get some information on design, inaccurate as it was.

 

One fine Saturday morning, I got up with the determination to achieve something. After breakfast, I carried my small sketchbook and spent some time sketching my design under the sun. I used to carry such a sketchbook with me till I was in the seventh grade. Afterwards, I somehow got lost in the world of mathematics and heavy reading but I still cherish the joy of sketching ideas on paper.

 

I figured out that I needed bamboo sticks for framing the glider, plastic for the body and some ropes for tying things. I knew the glider was going to be triangular in shape even without knowing its advantages. It was the most basic design you could ever find.

 

A little kid attempting to fly on his own is not something parents encourage. Yet my parents rarely objected to my doing anything and I had all the freedom to play around as I liked. I would do all sorts of things like collecting leaves and naming them. Sometimes I would collect rare stamps. But my mother wouldn't let me collect stones. She wasn't too thrilled about bringing foreign materials into the house. Whenever I sneaked stones into my room, they'd be gone the next day.

 

I went around the woods to collect bamboo. Once I'd collected enough, I tore down long sheets of plastic I found in our store room. By noontime, I had everything I need with me and was busy bending bamboos and tying joints together. Mother had a difficult time calling me for lunch and as soon as I was done, I was back to working on my project. By the evening, everything was ready. The glider was twice my size and ready for flight.

 

So what next?

 

Of course, I wasn't going to do my final demonstration without an audience. My audience was composed of the same kids from around the neighborhood in front of whom I had jumped with my umbrellas.

 

We used to live in the midst of the Agricultural Research Center with lots of open land including fields, trees and nurseries. Our house was surrounded by small walls made of bamboo so I planned to jump off the bamboo wall. It was tall enough for me to take off from and low enough to prevent a strong crash landing. By the time I was ready for the flight, I had no idea whether I was going to succeed. But I wasn't bogged down by the pressure to succeed – it was meant to be fun. I think in a lot of ways, I still retain that characteristic of being very open to the end result. So there I was, with handmade glider, rough and tough and ready to fly. It was beginning to get dark so I made my move as quickly as possible and took a big jump.

 

So what happened?

 

Well, I crash landed and sprained by ankle although it wasn't that bad. And I had a big grin on my face for having achieved what I'd set out to do. My audience was laughing and seemed to be having fun. Kids can laugh about anything. But during my jump, I did manage to gain a flight, a true flight that may have lasted for only a few seconds but I felt it in my heart. It filled my heart with great joy and it made me believe that it is possible to fly on your own. The experience was real no matter how fleeting it was. I was on air, master of the flight, and that was enough for me.

 

The only thing I feared then was getting a beating from my mother. The night was over and the show had ended. I abandoned the debris my experiment had created and entered the house. Yet another day had ended but this one had been full of delight and charged with experience. It was to be etched in my memory for a long time. Now, as I remember that time and think about that day, it makes me immensely happy. I still try to make every day count by doing things that give me the thrill of being in control. I think I never stopped doing so and never will. Every day is yet another opportunity for me to experiment with to make the best of life.