Flying-high festivities

The fifth International Kite Festival that began at the Parade Grounds, Secunderabad, on Monday, is indeed a delightful sight to behold. Kites of different shapes and sizes from across the globe soar through the skies.
The festivities also saw people from Indian cities such as Surat, Nagpur and Hyderabad participate. The crowd cheered as huge kites shaped in the form of fish, snake, Indian flag, etc. flew abound.

The global touch
Marcel Burri, who’d come all the way from Switzerland, was seen participating in the festival, flying a huge “smiley” kite. One among the kite-flyer family in the country, called Longvalley Kiteflyers, Marcel considers the festival a vacation for him and his wife. “As a family, we love to fly kites. This is the first time my wife and I are at the kite festival in Hyderabad. We’re here because this festival is one of the biggest kite celebrations,” he says.
Sebastian, an independent kite flyer from Germany, seemed pretty excited, as he flew “Fishy”, a huge fish-shaped kite he apparently took two weeks to make.
We met Leong Kwong from Singapore as he flew his manta ray kite. Leong, who belongs to the Singapore Kite Club, tells us, “This is my first time in Hyderabad and I am here with my team. Flying kites here depends on the wind; for now, everything seems good. We also have a few kites for night time.”

Indian diversity flying high
Apart from the international kite flyers, there were also Indian clubs showcasing their kites at the festival.
Gulabchad from Nagpur, who has over 100 kites placed in line, has made one that’s about 800 ft. long. “I come here every year,” he says, sharing his ambition to be the best participant here. “Every year, I come up with different kites. This year, I am going to display about ten kites, some of which have LED lights.” The kites that a team from Surat brought in for display was called the “Bed and Laundry” kites. The team hopes to display about fifty kites during the festival.
Amar, one of five members from another kite flying club in Surat, called Dreams-Kite Club, had kites of different shapes such as snake, strawberry and the Indian Tricolour.

Hyderabadi flavours in the sky
Despite the fervour and colours that painted the sky, only a few kite flyers from Hyderabad participated, adding to the festival what little local flavour they could. Ashok, from Kohinoor Kites Club in Hyderabad, was seen flying a huge circoflex kite. Circoflex kites are ring-shaped kites that usually consist of a 750×50 cm strip of fabric. “This colourful circoflex kite, which rotates with the wind, took us seven days to complete. We hope people enjoy watching it soaring in the skies,” concludes Ashok, smiling.