It was a day when Kolkata literally took to the rooftops, as it were, to celebrate the Vishwakarma puja. Since morning, children and adults alike scrambled to their or neighbours’ rooftops or went down to the park to kickstart the Puja celebrations by flying kites.

Five-year-old Raghav Basu, who goes to a kindergarten in North Kolkata, may be too young to fly kites but that did not stop him from buying them. “I like the colours,” he said. Like Raghav, most children were on their rooftops to fight old-fashioned kite wars.

Star Theatre in North Kolkata was the venue for many kite lovers with the organisers putting up a display of colourful kites. Especially popular with the children and the adults was a section on Chinese kites, which were bird-shaped.

Arijit Dutta, the owner of Star theatre, said, “These days, we hardly see people interested in flying kites and the numbers are dropping every year. The situation is worse in South Kolkata. The tradition is still alive to an extent in North Kolkata. One of the reasons for organising the festival, he said, was also to encourage the youngsters to fly kites once again. Apart from Kolkata, he said similar competitions were also organised in Balurghat in North Bengal.

“We need such locations where we can fly kites. Maybe today’s high-rises leave little scope for people to fly kites, but it is a pity that this old tradition is getting lost,” said Dutta.

The festival also coincided with the launch of a book on kites for children titled Tolai by Aloke Chatterjee.

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