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Published: January 15th 2023
Pushkar, Rajasthan
Feb 14th
With "five rupees" for paper and strings
You can have your own set of wings
With your feet on the ground
You're a bird in flight
With your fist holding tight
To the string of your kite David Tomlinson, Dick Van Dyke, and The Londoners
Long you live and high you fly Smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry And all you touch and all you see Is all your life will ever be Pink Floyd
Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise
John Lennon/ Paul McCartney
If I had wings no one would ask me should I fly... I can see in myself wings as I feel them If you see something else, keep your thoughts to yourself I'll fly free then
Peter Yarrow/ Sue Yardley
There is a palpable buzz in the air for days leading up to this one. Kids and grown up kids are getting excited in anticipation and in preparation for the big day. Any other suggested activities are waved aside as not possible.. this day is fully booked.
Babu, 30, has invited me to the rooftop of his old family home. This requires a fairly perilous climb to a large corrugated iron roof area that seems solid enough (it better be because.... there are at least half a dozen guys up there plus a massive sound system). From this vantage point one can see the multitude of other rooftops that are full of young and old engaging in kite-flying. The music blasts out, there is the noise of kites swishing in the wind, food is on offer and the atmosphere is generally one of a big neighbourhood party.
For Babu, who is a clothes shop merchant (the shop is closed today), this is an excursion into his youth. He has obviously been a very skilled kite-flyer in his day as I observe. His quick movements involving his whole body
in coordinated action, and the resultant one, two, three kites cut in quick succession (see below re: cutting).
But at the end of the day, Babu is a bit despondent. He says he 'didn't feel it'.... which made me wonder about all things we try to re-create and re-experience. But he did have fun.
Every year, on January 14
th, certain places in northern India celebrate Kite (
Patang) Festival. It is huge in Gujarat but also in neighbouring Rajasthan (where Pushkar is located). Months beforehand, homes (traditionally) and, more lately, commercial enterprises begin to manufacture kites for the festival. The kites are made with paper or often re-cycled plastic packaging and can cost as little as 5 rupees (less that 10 cents Australian).
For the day itself, it is not unusual for one player to purchase at least 20 or 30 kites, in anticipation of losing quite a few sky battles (and kites). However, the larger expense is for the kite string reels. Traditionally strings were made using glued on broken glass to effect maximum power for the competitive art of cutting an opponent's line. Those who have read
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini will be familiar with this process, which usually includes younger boys running after 'cut' kites. Nowadays that type of string is banned as well as an imported Chinese version which proved equally problematic, specially for injury to wildlife. Now there is a local cotton version which is still pretty hard on the skin (and wildlife), as evidenced by the cuts on many a kite-flyers' fingers. A reel can cost up to 500 rupees (but allows for many kites once the current kite has been cut and descended to the never-never of kite afterlife on the streets below).
The corresponding socio-religious festival (called Uttarayan in Gujarat) marks the day when winter begins to turn into summer, a signal for farmers that the sun is back and that harvest season is approaching. Patang Festival is pretty much a public holiday with special foods, and with lots of
prasad (God-offering) being given out on the streets of Pushkar. This free food is prepared and paid for by the local grouping of shop-keepers or the local temple Brahmins, and usually consists of fired sweet and spicy delicacies and rice dishes. But the most notable thing leading
up to January 14
th is the number of 'pop-up' kite-selling shops and stalls and the sight of children and adults on their terraces practising their skills.
In Hinduism, this festival marks the awakening of the gods from their deep winter sleep.
While originally the sport of the
nawabs and
maharajas, kite-flying gradually has become extremely popular throughout Indian society.
Traditionally a male domain, one can now see young girls getting into kite-flying, and it will be a short time before they are competently 'cutting' their male rivals.
Activities such as kite-flying connect one to a natural force (the wind in this case) that is beyond one's control and yet is to be harnessed and worked with. There ensues a necessary merging with that life-force for maximum effect... a timeless oneness of space and time. A space where one might for a fleeting moment experience a
portal to the unmanifested (Tolle).
Up high in the atmosphere is a taste of emptiness that distracts from ego-mind and grasping, and where things are evidenced experientially as non-permanent: Moments where 'to do' lists fall away and where one enters
a quality of heart and mind beyond.. completely exposed (well, certainly so, to those other threatening kites). One is awake, mindful, and here now.
Kite-flying will hopefully continue to survive as a non-technological activity for kids and grown-ups that takes them away from their social media platforms, at least of a few hours each year. Add to that a lovely bonding between generations, where dads (and soon mums too) show their kids the ropes (the strings?), albeit they are also re-living their own childhood passion.
Only in dark, the light (Ursula le Guin):
So the down side?:
Birds injure themselves flying through an almost invisible myriad of kite strings, monkeys get entangled, cows inadvertently eat strings along with other street delicacies. And then there is the aftermath of lots more rubbish (specially the plastic debris) and days of tripping over the discarded kite string lying around.
Everything is corruptible.... on Kite day large boom-box speakers which are not cheap to hire, are mounted on roof-tops and turned to maximum volume, blasting out techno-music in competition with the neighbouring rooftop. Bear in mind this noise pollution
starts at about 7.30am and is non-stop until at least 7pm. The competition of cutting a neighbour's kite is perhaps not endearing to relationships or a peaceful experience of natural forces (although in most cases it is light hearted fair-play).
But all in all, a fun day that takes the Indian market, and social life away to other places where worries are put on hold. In older India, life is mostly desperate and tenuous and such distractions are welcomed.
When you send it flyin' up there
All at once you're lighter than air
You can dance on the breeze
Over 'ouses and trees
With your fist 'olding tight
To the string of your kite David Tomlinson, Dick Van Dyke, and The Londoners
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Hatty Lloyd
non-member comment
And why no one thinks to wear gloves is anyone's guess ;-)