The 5th International Kite Festival of the city, an event that exhibits the skill of flying kites of various designs, will be organised at the open grounds on Savagaon Road for four days from Saturday to Tuesday.
According to Abhay Patil, ex MLA and president of Parivartan Pariwar, the chief organiser of the event that attracted thousands from all over the district, adjoining towns and cities of Maharashtra and Goa, said the four-day event would also feature a youth festival and a women’s festival to involve them in the cultural and sporting extravaganza.
So far, about 21 international teams from England, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Argentina, Estonia, Ukraine and Indonesia have confirmed participation.
The Indian contingent includes 40 teams. Other than the home state of Karnataka, teams from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala and West Bengal, are participating in the event. International kite flyer from the host city, Sandesh Kaddi, will participate for the first time in this festival this year.
To create interest in kite flying, competitions would be held on the third day. There would also be a drawing competition for school students the same day. The youth festival, “Umang”, to be held on the first two days, would witness at least 60 teams from Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra. While the women’s festival “Prerana” would be held on last two days and feature competitions in solo singing, cooking, salad decoration, group song, solo dance, makeover, group folk dance, ‘antakshari’, bridal mehandi art, fancy dress, fashion show and women’s kite flying. Folk teams from Sikkim, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir would make value addition to the event.
Event conveners Chaitanya Kulkarni, Ganesh Malalikar and Ashok Naik said city buses had been arranged to ferry people from various parts of the city to enable people to visit the venue of the kite festival. Eom.
