Wind plays spoilsport at Gujarat kite fest

Wind plays spoilsport at Gujarat kite fest
RIDDHI TRIVEDI

AHMEDABAD, JANUARY 12: Whenever you think of colour, think of the International Kite Festival. On Tuesday, the Police Stadium in Shahibaug was a riot of colours on the ground as well as the sky.

The absence of adequate wind currents was a damper on a day which otherwise began on a perfectly festive note. The turn-out at the festival especially of enthusiastic participants was impressive with a dozen different nations of the world represented by their top kite flyers.

However, for those that were there, the day was not entirely lost or the fun spoilt, for the participants, valiantly kept up their efforts sending their kites soaring even if just for a few breath-taking minutes seemingly on the strength of sheer will.

Teddies, butterflies, owls, kites-on-a-line, glider kites, national flags, flower-shaped kites, those shaped like Kathakali masks, a woman's face and a shark, a Korean fan dance kite and even a huge cow face with a `Happy New Year' banner trailing under it, all took to the sky. Their craftsmen adjusted the `kamaans' and `kannis' and endlessly tried for `just one more time.'

Traditionally, kites are rhombus-shaped, made from bamboo sticks and paper, but these painstaking creations put their poorer cousins to shame by their sheer grandeur. Made from everything from paper, cloth, wood, various types of specialised nylon, carbon rods and fibre glass, every one of the kites takes several months of careful planning and designing to produce the perfect specimen.

V K Rao, from Karnataka, a two-time prize winner, is a participant as old as the festival itself. He has been coming here every single year since the inaugural 1988 festival. A photographer by profession, Rao won the biggest kite award in '89 and special prize for design in '91. From Korea, came some of the biggest and most magnificent of kites. Yoon Sik Kim with his brother and daughter came with butterfly kites, star boxes, shields and a huge many-angled kite depicting the Korean fan dance. Sporting various badges of the tourism dept and kite clubs of his country, Yoon Sik Kim proudly displays his creations.