The kite vendors at General Bazaar are all set. They have made neat streamers with small kites, tied baby spindles onto each other in long garlands, hung kites of different colours and sizes for display and made their make-shift shops all colourful. The only hitch: none of the afternoon shoppers are stopping by to even look.
It’s the other shops in the neighbourhood, with inexpensive footwear, hair clips and earrings that sell ‘everything’ below ₹100 has more crowds.
But Babu, the part-time salesman, is not disappointed, “ Yeh ladies time hai, sab log ghar ka saman ke liye atey. Aur yeh time mein bacche school mein rehte (this is ladies’ time; all of them come to shop for home needs and its when children are at school).” The crowd will swell a day before and after Sankranti, he says.
Once the holidays begin or work ends, men and boys come for kites. One shop at Neredmet crossroads is a little busier, with children returning from school stopping by with small change, to enquire about the prices of kites. Shopkeeper Shanti Kumar is happy to chat with them.“These kids will be back with their fathers to buy the kites. I have stocked less plastic kites. They are cheap, and are still in demand, but knowledgeable kite-fliers usually ask for paper kites,” he says. For some reason, a black kite is a preferred choice.
Kite lovers and loyalists of this tradition look forward to this day to fly kites and rue the lack of kites in the sky. “It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say the sky used to be strewn with kites some years ago. We used to collect piles of kites just by cutting other kites. My elder brother and I used to cut and the youngest one, who was an athlete, used to run them. It might sound cheap but after collecting the kites we had cut, we used to sell them to other boys who wanted kites asap but wouldn’t want to leave their spot. The rest would go to the kids in the lanes who couldn’t afford to spend a lot of money buying kites,” says K Sudheer, a businessman.
Sudheer and his brothers are saddened that the festival has somehow transformed into a festival of plastic kites. “The sound and the look of plastic simply puts us off. Besides, they are Chinese. We love our own paper kites and still buy them for distribution among the kids in the lane. As a tradition, we still fly one or two kites but it has become boring because we have no competition,” he says.
Why are paper kites preferred over the plastic ones? “Paper has grace unmatched. When a paper kite and a plastic kite are sent up at the same time, it is paper kite that will be admired. Plastic kite is nothing, in fact it is a put off,” says businessman Ananth V. He is hoping someday his son will take a fancy to flying kites. “I have never bought a plastic kite and will never encourage anyone either,” he says sternly.
Does technique differ in flying paper and plastic kites? “Plastic kite needs more control as it is lighter and gets carried away easily. But it cannot be a leader, it’s like an out-of-control rogue, just like bad drivers on the road,” says Jay Sriram, a civil engineer.
Shopkeepers say the demand for plastic kites hasn’t died yet; some still prefer to buy them. But most bulk buying for schools, offices and families has turned to paper kites. “Plastic in any form is a no-no at my house and I cannot stand the sight of the flimsy plastic kites hanging from trees and electric poles. So my votes for plastic kite was never there,” says Nirmala Kamal, a homemaker.
