Unexpected friendships can be some of the strongest relationships we will ever experience. For these two young men Yuze, a Chinese American and Kabir an Indian American their unintentional friendship had the potential to last a lifetime. When these two little boys meet on the streets of a marketplace in Chicago they become instant friends. Recognizing both of their families are in different places and not well represented where they presently live, they decide that while different they can still be friends and learn from each other. The two boys share a lot of their free time together, they’re study buddies, share their culture’s foods, and one big thing they shared from Kabir's family in India is there love flying kites. However, as we know after the fallout after 9/11 affected many people whom others decided “looked” like how the perpetuators looked and therefore had to be guilty of something. These roundups in many instances were unfounded and hate crimes for people from or who looked like they were from the Middle East soared in America. Kabir found himself on the receiving end of one such circumstance and while Yuze tries to save him and his family Kabir decides that now is his time to fight. This is a story of friendship and the power that hate can have on the breaking apart or longevity of a country and a friendship. In the end what these young men are left with is what could have been a lifetime of memories and a kite… a past time of their childhood that will forever bring them back together.
Kite
(Scene opens with Yuze, a Chinese man in his 40s, but he walks with a cane making him look older. He walks slowly with the cane in one hand and something larger under his arm in the other. He maneuvers in a few different directions it almost looks like he's tiptoeing, but what we find out is that he is walking to avoid stepping on anyone's headstone that is in the grass. He finally makes his way to the one he's been looking for. He uses his cane to move the grass off the headstone that is in the ground, smiles for a moment and then takes a deep breath before he lays what is in his hands next to the headstone.)
Yuze: (looking up) It looks like it might rain today. Why is it that every year when I come to visit you for some reason there's always rain? (beat) Maybe it's because, my mother once told me that when it rains it means that the angels are crying. I guess in that case it would make sense that it rains. (he looks at the kite) I told you I was working on a new one. This one I'm going to call “A Chick Named Chole” (he laughs and looks around as if he doesn’t want to get caught, looks back to the ground but the kite is gone. Suddenly Kabir, an Indian teenage boy appears, laughing as he holds the kite, playing with it. Yuze is frozen as if he has just seen a ghost…he has) You still look… 16.
Kabir: Because I aaaammmmmmm. (flying the kite like a plane) And I’m coming in for a landing. (acting like he’s holding a walkie talkie) “Breaker breaker this is Kabir 1-9-9-1 do you copy? (Kabir looks at Yuze, still frozen.) I said do YOU copy? (beat, with a sad face) Come on I’m here, let’s play. (he hands him the walkie talkie) Copy? (they both nod)
Yuze: (into the walkie talkie) Breaker breaker this is Yuze and I read ya loud and clear. (He laughs, they both laugh and just as Yuze is about to get sad.)
Kabir: No tears. Not yet (he points up) Not until the rain comes remember. No angels…
Yuze: None of them are crying right now.
Kabir: So, let’s play like we used to until it starts raining and your mom-
Yuze: Or your mom yells-
Kabir/ Yuze: (yelling) Boys get in the house, you’re going to ruin your good clothes!!! (they laugh)
