The Art Of Kite Flying

Yesterday was 15th Jan and the day of winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. Generally the winter solstice is on the 14th Jan but since this is a leap year with 365 days and February a 29 day month it fell on the 15th.
It is also a season of harvesting in India and the sub-continent and the day is celebrated with a lot of gusto and passion under different festival names eg in Maharashtra it is Makar Sankranti and in the south of India it is Pongal and in the north east it is Bihu.
It is also a season of kite flying. The kites vary in sizes and shapes with a straight bamboo stick woven with a bow shaped stick perpendicular to it and made out of paper and Chinese plastic. A soft breeze flies them high into the skies and Oh! The colours are delightful. Horizontal stripes and vertical stripes of different colours made into national flags, religious emblems and famous film stars and sometimes with religious and philosophical and advertorial messages inscribed.
There is an art in tying the cord to the kite which makes all the balance possible and to manoeuvre the kite in the skies. The strand that connects you and the kite in the sky is the most important thread. As a boy I use to coat this thread with crushed glass mixed with glue and colour. This is the thread that is the combat weapon when taking on another kite in the sky. This is where the entire art of kite flying is exhibited. There is a definite methodology on taking on a foe. There is an art of diving over another kite to cut its stings. Another is to get deep under it and pull the string of your kite fast enough to create a friction and cut the others strings. There are various other ways like jerking, leaving the string of your kite over the others and releasing gradually. What follows a cut of another kite is a loud cry of exulting a win over another kite in the sky.
At the end of the day you have flown a lot of kites and the echoes of the surrounding sky fill your heart with joy and grief with the wins and losses and blood oozes out of the joints of your finger due to the cuts of the crushed glass coated strands.
And then you salute to the setting sun and darkness envelopes the skies. Here begins another joy of releasing sky lanterns as you light a candle inside the pink balloons which take off one after the other and fill the night sky with bright luminaries.