I'll Be There Dreckly: High As A Kite

Ahmedabad, India

In this blog... I go to the world's biggest kite festival, spend a day in the homes of five local families and see a truly amazing night sky.

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Tuesday 14th January

By chance I'd found myself in Ahmedabad for Uttarayan - the world's biggest kite festival. It's a two day public holiday for the city which everyone spends with their family and friends, stood on the flat rooftops of their homes flying kites, eating food and having fun. With no central event as such, it wasn't at all obvious how I would be able to see or join in with the festivities, with neither the internet nor hotel staff shedding any light. I decided it would likely be a spectacle just being out and about, and rather than roam aimlessly, walked across the city towards another stepwell nearby, to see what happened on the way.

About a mile along the road I first saw the extent of the celebrations, with kites filling both the sky and every nearby tree, and people flying them from every available open space. Walking beside a main road, a local guy enthusiastically called me across and encouraged me to fly his kite, much to the delight of him and his family, none of whom who could speak any English. Despite being obviously being quite poor - I'm guessing they lived on the street, they were all smiles. There's something I love about the Indian passion for kites - it's so simple and innocent, and accessible to anybody which is refreshing in the world of today.

The guy who dragged me

across the street to fly his kite

Kites everywhere

I continued on another half mile, and took a short cut through an side street, beside densely packed, poor-quality housing. The quality of housing and the crime rate don't usually seem to go hand in hand in India. A guy of around fifty was stood by the road with his group of friends, gathered around a motorbike. 'Hello, how are you?' he said, surprised to see a foreigner, and after a minute of chatting invited me up to his rooftop to fly a kite. I was caught off guard by the invite, but thought why not, and so began a day of some of the best hospitality I've ever received.

Climbing the almost ladder-like stairs of the typical three story home, and passing tiny one-room concrete homes, I was on his flat rooftop, and saw for the first time the most amazing sight - a panorama full of brightly coloured kites and rooftops full of people as far as the eye could see. I was once again given the kite strings, and introduced to a few of his local friends and children. A nineteen year old lad, I think called Nirali pointed to another rooftop nearby where his friends were, and asked if I'd join them, so I thought why not.

Reaching the rooftop of house two, I was greeted by extremely loud Bhangra music, and a throng of about twenty mostly late-teenagers with the odd uncle, grandad and young kid thrown in, all of whom immediately wanted to know the usual questions. I'm now convinced the Indian government issue the population with a 'questions to ask foreigners' guide sheet, such is the consistency of questions I receive. I was immediately accosted with a blur of camera phones, with arms pulling me this way, that way, come here, go there, eat this, do that. All spoke over the top of each other, completely oblivious that the others exist and fought for my attention. Once again, I must point out before I'm accused of egotism, that this is not in any way a reflection of me but typical of the way Westeners are received in India, though less so among more educated people, for whom the novelty is often long past. Despite only being 11am, the music blared non-stop, and I had little choice but to a oblige when they started dancing, Indian style and got me to join in. There wasn't even any beer involved, since it's illegal throughout the state of Gujarat. I soon picked up the basic moves and had a whale of a time. After a while what with this, and all the attention I needed to take a rest, at which point I was well fed and watered with home-made sugary snacks. Nirali could see I was struggling with the sun when holding the kite strings, and gave me his sunglasses to use, then refused to take them back afterwards - 'they're yours now'.

House party number two. Not sure
what forced that daft expression!

After an hour or so, Nirali pointed to his home, about five houses away, and told me to wave to his family who were looking my way, after which they ushered for me to visit them. This was turning into quite a day. I arrived in their family home, which in their case took over all three stories of this building, and was simple, colourful, clean and pleasant. I met his sister who is a bit of a taekondo champion and proud of it, his Mum who immediately brought me some chapattis and curried mixed veg, and his Dad - Mahesh who works in accounts for the government, and is a civil defence volunteer as well. All could speak a bit of English, but only the daughter was fluent. All sorts of neighbours, cousins and uncles soon arrived from nearby, who were all extremely friendly, and once again I was accosted with camera phones and demands to dance with them in a group, hilarious. By this point I'd given up all thoughts of doing anything else with the day, feeling like I'd struck gold already with these excitable locals. There is a saying in India - 'the guest is god' and they certainly follow through on the claim.

House party number three. Mahesh is on the right.

After a couple of hours, Mahesh, who's around 45, kindly offered to take me on a tour of the area, so we went off in his little Maruti-Suzuki car - an Indian made machine. It was a bit of a strange tour in that we went a few miles across town first stopping off to see his office block, which was closed for the celebrations but impressively clean and modern, then onto another rooftop party where his boss was spending the afternoon. Arriving at house number four, I was led into the living room where the family were having lunch, which in the traditional manner was sat on the floor cross legged, with a range of dishes and accompaniments on the tiles that everyone helps themselves to. I was plied straight away with food, then we went up to the rooftop where some of their other friends were flying kites. I met Mehesh's boss Pinakin, and heard stories about his six months in England in the eighties - playing cricket and working. Interesting guy. After an hour or so, Mahesh then drove me back to base.

The fun continued as Mahesh dropped me round to his neighbours across the street, house five of the day, then disappeared after a few minutes leaving me on the rooftop with yet another extended family. I chatted with the son and daughter who's names I forget, who were well educated and talkative, him being a lecturer in mechnical engineering and her an IT professional. Once again, the cameraphones were out in force, I was passed a kite to fly, and I was served a range of sweets - thin slabs of caramelised peanuts amongst others. Kite fighting is part of the celebrations, where people purposely try to take each other's down. This is done by buying string that is coated in very fine particles of glass, so therefore when the lines contact and rub each other, one of them is going to break. Unfortunately this results in many injuries each year, both to passing birds, and humans, who often sustain cuts to their throats from stray strings, and fall off rooftops whilst concentrating too hard on looking upwards. Three hundred people were injured and eight died at this years festival (article here). Only in India.

I may have mentioned before that you don't normally see that many women out and about in India, it's often a real old-fashioned man's world where women are usually hidden away as housewives, or work on farms or building sites. There are exceptions of course such as in the previous paragraph. Therefore being in so many homes over the day gave me the opportunity to actually meet some women for a change, who were all very pleasant but struck me as overwhelmingly shy. Times are changing, and many young and educated women now go out to work, and live more western lifestyles, for better or worse.

House party number four

My new buddy Mahesh returned around fiveish, and decided to drive to show me a nearby Jain temple. Jainism is a minority religion in India, practiced by about 2.5% of the population (which is still 30 million people!), and based on Hinduism with a twist from what I can work out - they have some interesting views including not killing anything at all, insects included. I'd not come across one of these temples before, but to be honest couldn't really tell the difference with a Hindu one, as they all vary so much anyway. We then drove back across town to where we'd been earlier - house number four. Can you keep up, cause I can't, it was non-stop! Pinakin, the boss, then immediately loaded a few of us in his car to go and get some supplies for the evening. One of the guys bought me a panipuri to try from a streetfood vendor - a hollow pastry shell, filled with cold veg and water, whilst someone else bought me a bottle of water. All of this without asking, such amazing kindness. Unfortunately upon returning to the car, he realised he'd locked his keys in the ignition! After twenty minutes of trying to break-in, he abandoned it for the night and hailed us an auto-rickshaw home.

Four families enjoying Uttarayan
together - at house party number four

It was now dark, and most of the kites had been packed away for the night and replaced with something even more spectacular. Back at his house I walked up the steps onto the roof, and my jaw dropped at the sight that lay before my eyes. The sky was absolutely full to the brim with Chinese lanterns - those cresch paper balloons powered by candles. There were literally tens of thousands of them, set off by people from rooftops all over the city. The photo below really doesn't do it justice, it was one of the greatest sights I've ever seen, second only to the a Northern Lights. Of course, this sight would rightly never happen in a developed country, because of fears over fire, rubbish and cows choking on the remains, so it felt all the more special because of it and we joined in by lighting a few ourselves. It was then dinner time, and the four families who comprised the party sat cross-legged on the floor and served a type of rice dish called hotchpotch with a khichdi masala curry. With a nightbus to Mumbai to catch, at eight I had to say my goodbyes and thank you's, and Mahesh offered to drive me back to my hotel.

Now there my friends is real hospitality. Over the day I'd met so many amazingly kind, welcoming, curious and friendly people. I was absolutely bowled over by the experience, and all I did to make it happen was it was go for a wander. The way all the best things seem to happen!