International kite flying festival begins
Uttarayan-crazy Ahmedabadis fail to turn up for the event

The 13th International Kite Festival organised by the state tourism department and corporation at the Police Stadium, Shahibaug, began with a flying start albeit with lukewarm local response. Deputy minister for tourism Khoda Patel inaugurated the festival, which would also be held in Surat and Bhavnagar on January 12 and 13 respectively. The participants will come back to Ahmedabad on January 14, the Uttarayan, for the final day of the 4-leg festival.

The kite festival drew very poor response in terms of audience participation barring the presence of the school children.

But this definitely did not dampen the enthusiasm of the participants.

In fact, it was a display of technological innovation, ingenuity and experimentation by the participants with kite sizes varying from six inches to 120 feet.

Sixteen participants from seven countries and 45 from various states are participating in the festival.

In fact, one of the participants from Pune, Dr S.V. Bhave, flew in his own plane especially to take part in this festival.

A surgeon by profession, he has been "fascinated with anything that flies" and promised to come the next time with different models of kites.

He has been building aircraft models ever since his school days and has also taken to aerial photography.

Mr Bhave is also the honorary advisor to the Indian Air Force on photography. Having visited the kite festival for the first time in the state, Dr Bhave found the enthusiasm outpouring and the attitude of state tourism officials refreshing and informative.

Besides the foreign participants, those visiting the fair from other parts of the country were very enthusiastic about the kite festival in the state. Uttarayan is traditional kite-flying time in the state, but this is not the case in other parts of the country. "Kite flying in Karnataka has been traditionally a summer past time but our club has tried to popularise the hobby to glean away children from the television and get them interested in outdoor activities," said Mr V.K. Sanil, a member of the team from Mangalore, which is a hobby group of kite makers and kite flyers. The team comprises professionals as varied as chartered accountants, engineers and technicians. This ream experiments with different materials like rip-stop nylon, plastic, nylon cloth to make kites shaped as volcano, flying lizard and even the Kathakali mask.

The international participants from France, Korea, Malaysia, China, Israel, Abu Dhabi and the UK were awed by the traditional gaiety associated with kite flying in the state, "In France, kite flying is a hobby of a selective few and is more used for photography, meteorological and scientific studies," said French kite maker Bertrand Rosier.

The French displayed the wheel and crown shaped kites made from nylon and lightweight carbon rods. China participated for the first time in the festival. The Korean kites were dominantly in shapes of birds and animals.

For the Swedish software engineer in Abu Dhabi, Agren Andreas kite flying is akin to "putting pictures in the sky".

Ustad Naushad Patangwala, Salim Miyan and Bhanu Shah represented Ahmedabad in the kite festival. Mr Shah has made a huge kite depicting Lord Krishna's Ras Lila. State education minister Anandi Patel, BJP general secretary and MLA Gordhan Jhadafiya and Dr Maya Kodnani also attended the festival.

Republished from Asian Age