Flying Kites in Jaipur

They’ve been waiting for over a month now, practicing for this day, a day ostensibly given to them solely for the purpose of flying kites. The four children who live upstairs have gone through at least twenty kites, some of which have been deserted on our unreachable back balcony or caught in the looming mango tree outside our gate or smashed and shredded on the street below. The group of school-bound children I passed this morning carried their kites in hand and chattered about techniques for making them fly and whose would soar highest. At the primary school, the students filed demurely into the empty field nearby, then erupted across the grass, dispersing into constellations of bodies from which their flimsy toys emerged suddenly, tossed into the air with a flick of the wrist.

Tomorrow is the holiday called Makar Sankranti, which marks the movement of the sun into the northern hemisphere and heralds the onset of warmer weather. It is one of the several harvest festivals celebrated in India. No one yet has been able to tell me how it became associated with kite flying. I read one article that suggested the kites were a type of offering to the Sun deity, a charming, if unlikely, speculation. Today a primary school teacher told me that kite flying began when a king declared that people should fly kites on this day. She didn’t offer any more details. Many have suggested that it’s simply good weather for kite flying -- a fair wind, cooler temperatures, and warm sunshine.

I counted twenty-three kites above me while walking in my neighborhood Sunday evening. From the ground, they are diamond-shaped specks in the blue-gray winter sky. The strings that attach them to their earthly owners are nearly invisible; they float, scraps of color abandoned to the desires of the wind. When it twists them to the side, they disappear, only to return a moment later with a crackle. High up, they trace circles, as though searching, waiting, for the breeze to lift them. When it does, they are snapped back, and rustle a murmur of agreement to the winds that give them their freedom.

The kites available in our neighborhood are made of various materials: cellophane, paper, or plastic. The ones we bought seem to be made of wrapping paper. Most consist of a diamond of one of these materials, fitted with two twigs, one vertical and one arching horizontally across the upper portion of the diamond. Some have wispy tails. String is purchased on a separate spool and one has to make small punctures in the kite in order to thread the string through.

I have been promised that tomorrow the sky will be full of kites. We will fly our own; til then, I will anticipate feeling the wind in my hands, the kite our translator.