Modi patang, KCR manja flavour of the Sankranti season at Gulzar Houz

Hyderabad: Gulzar Houz, a popular market that sells kite-flying paraphernalia, wears the look of a political war zone, with kites and threads named after popular politicians and movies. To name a few, the ‘Modi manja and patang’, ‘KCR manja and patang’, ‘Baahubali manja’ and ‘KGF manja’ are among the popular items sold.

The over 100-year-old popular hub houses around 100 shops, some of which are permanent and some of which are temporary, set up mostly in the run-up to Sankranti.

Located yards from the Charminar, families have been undertaking kite sales for generations, with people from other districts and states also visiting to purchase their favourite items.

Among the visitors during this reporter’s visit were Prithviraj, Madhav, Saidarshan, Arun, Rahul and Jagadish, who came from the Sangareddy district.

“This place is quite popular in Telangana. Every year, we get to see new varieties of kites and manjas. Here, we also get props of celebrations, like plastic trumpets, caps, lamps,” said Rahul.

Abdul Raffee, a salesman in one of the shops, said, “Customers from other districts will be looking for fancy kites, such as digital prints and movie-star ones. This year, we have high sale for the politician manja and patang. We ran out of the Modi-ji kits and KCR-ji kites. Children, meanwhile, like cartoon printed patang, with Motu-Patlu, Doraemon and superheroes preferred.”

Syed Abdul Raheem, of Gulzar Houz Patang House, said, “Our specialty is manja, which is made from the surrounding areas. At least 100 families are engaged in making this manja and making kites, apart from the 100 shops which have (temporarily) come up here.”