The old man remained dreaming in the sun. His kite shop was gone. 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 time at the cinema. Moreover, there were not many open spaces left for flying of kites.

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. Kite flying was then the sport of the kings, and the old man remembered how the Nawab himself would 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 kite-maker, had in the prime of his life been well-known throughout the city. Some of his kites sold for three or four rupees each! Everyone in the neighbourhood would ask after his health; but now, no one visited him. The children who had bought kites from him 10 years ago, had grown up in a swiftly changing and competitive world and they looked at the old kite-maker 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.