NEW DELHI // To Guddu Khan and other enthusiasts, kite-flying and its cousin, kite-fighting, are more than a hobby. Far more.
Mr Khan grew up watching his father and uncles fly kites from rooftops above the narrow alleyways in Old Delhi.
“My father would let me hold the spool sometimes,” said Mr Khan, 27. “When he did that, it made me want to be just like him.”
Mr Khan started flying kites by himself when he was 14. Five years ago, he ventured into the kite-fighting and the sport’s version of the big time: city parks.
“Rooftops are for amateurs. They don’t play all-year around. We do,” boasted Mr Khan.
Like Mr Khan, Tehseen Qureshi, 22, said kites are an obsession. He shuts his business early on Sundays and Tuesdays and heads to the Nawab Kite Club in Old Delhi, which has seven members. There, he and his friends fly kites until dusk.
“People like football, cricket, some people like to smoke and drink, but I have one passion in life,” he said. “My only passion in life is flying a kite.”
Mr Qureshi says kite-fighting is almost an art, even for those who watch it.
“You need a trained eye,” he explained. “For you, it just looks like kites dancing in the air but for us, we can tell who is winning, who is too tense, who is not paying attention.”
Competing kites must be the same size. The winner of a coin toss decides where the kites will be launched - from a rooftop or from the ground, for example, or in a park.
For Mr Qureshi, kite-fighting is a test of resolve, whether you persevere to the end or withdraw your kite.
“There is a split second decision you must take. When you fight, your heart is up there. You get one chance to take it back. But you also risk losing your heart,” he said.
Kite fighters use finely crushed glass and rice glue to coat their strings. Such details as the kind of knot used to connect the kite and the string also matter.
“That knot decides the character of a kite, how it will behave in the air, its fate,” Mr Chauhan said.
Amid all the tricks of the trade, there is an unwritten rule, Mr Khan said: Kite-fighting never becomes a fight.
“You can curse at each other, when you’re flying a kite, but when one kite flyer loses, you have to graciously accept your defeat.
“That is the sign of a true flier.”
* Suryatapa Bhattacharya
