The fading calls of 'kai po che'

Kite flying in a still from the film 'Kai Po Che!' (2013).

Is there anything more uplifting for the spirit than the sight of colourful kites soaring into a clear blue sky? As children we even let ourselves believe that if they kept going they would eventually reach another planet where alien beings would miraculously decipher the carefully crafted messages we had inscribed for them.

In the India of the 1970s, flying kites was a shared passion. In recent years, its popularity has been on the decline owing to several factors. Some people cite valid concerns of serious injuries as one reason for their disappearance. With high-rises dotting most of our cities, there is also a natural barrier to flying these paper dreams.

Kite flying in Varanasi. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

That’s a real pity since it is such a wonderful form of entertainment. The best part of the sport is how inexpensive it is. Buy the basic thread, then sharpen it by using some ground glass and drying it for weeks. The kites themselves are  freely available and still cheap enough to be affordable. With that you are set. For minor patchwork, boiled rice is a good enough adhesive, though there are many more sophisticated alternatives available today.

The slight complexity comes in flying the kite. That requires skill and some basic understanding of physics. But watching little boys and girls do it with ease suggests it isn’t a difficult skill to master.

The ancient Chinese are usually credited with flying the first world’s kites, an art they have honed to perfection through the centuries. In fact, Weifang, a small city in Shandong Province of China, is known as the “Kite Capital of the World.” It hosts an annual festival which features a variety of kite-flying competitions, including a battle of the giant kites, where teams compete to see whose kite can fly the highest.

Their introduction to India is less clear. In a piece on the history of kite-flying in India, author Manan Kapoor writes that kites are believed to have come to India with Buddhist missionaries from the East through the Silk Route with the earliest written accounts of them appearing in the poetry of the 13th-century Marathi saint and poet Namdev. Subsequently, they appeared more often in Indian literature and by the time the Mughals settled in the country, kite flying had become a common and popular sport.

Over the years Indians have taken to it with as much gusto as they have to Chinese cuisine, including the ubiquitous gobi Manchurian. Today one of the world's largest kite-flying festivals, which attracts participants and visitors from all across the world, takes place in Ahmedabad from January 8-14 every year. It ends a day before Makar Sankranti, a festival marking the Sun’s transit into Makara rashi. At that time, the dash of colour in the skies is complemented by the celebrations on ground with melas, folk dances, bonfires and feasts as new beginnings are ushered in.

But that’s not the only time when kites are flown in India. In a tradition that dates back to 1928, flying kites is an integral part of Independence Day celebrations. It started with the boycott of the notorious Simon Commission, ostensibly set up by the British to study constitutional reforms in India. But since the seven-member team didn’t have a single Indian, the country rose in protest when it arrived. A small but vivid part of the protests was the flying of kites with the message “Simon Go Back”.

Protests against the Simon commission in 1928.

Kites have their own unique place in most countries from the Wau-balang kites from Malaysia and the Ilayang-Illayanghave kites from Indonesia to Japan's famous Rokkaku kites which are made with bamboo spars and washi paper and are often hand-painted with faces of famous Samurai. Over the years, kites have also been used to carry advertisements and logos while the designs have become more and more imaginative. The Wikipedia page on kite types lists 100s of them, including such beauties as the musical Kleng Ek kite from Cambodia which is flown at night.

While the threat of being slashed by a wayward kite is real and needs to be minimised, hopefully we can restore this gentle and lyrical sport to its rightful place in our skies.