Kite flying in India is a festive celebration. The skies can be seen dotted with colourful flying objects with strings attached on occasions such as Uttarayan or Makar Sankranti, while in the north during Baisakhi or Basant Panchami and on the Independence Day. Children and adults alike, continue to indulge in this sport with fervour and passion. 

The kite represents liberty, inventiveness, and invokes a spirit of competition. It also has more profound spiritual meanings. It is thought that the aspirations and prayers of the flyers are carried by the kites as they soar towards the heavens. Cutting down another person’s kite is viewed as a metaphor for conquering life’s difficulties rather than just a simple victory.

Kite flying compels you to spend time in the open and in the sun, as if to remind us of how vital the sun and the natural world are to our existence. 

Kite flying as a sport often needs more than one person, with one being the primary flyer and the other a sidekick to hold the kite during its launch or to hold on to the receptacle containing the thread that is used to control the kite. Timely release, winding back are the jobs that this sidekick is entrusted upon and one that is to be done deftly lest it interferes with the flow of flying. The flyer’s skill is tested through how high he can fly the kite in various wind conditions and how he can keep his kite flying amongst a sea of other flyers in an open competition. The award of this sport, apart from the intense exhilaration, is how many fallen kites one collects.