The 14th Jan is thebiggest day for every Amdavadi youngster. I bet that. No, seriously for us thefestival of kites is two days of enjoyment. We call 14th Jan -Uttarayan and 15th Jan Vasi-Uttarayan (post-Uttarayan). I tellyou why...
First of all the enjoymentsstart with preparation of it. We need 2 basic things for this festival and thatis Kites and Threads. We have to buy those as early as possible because as we14th Jan come closer the rate goes high. This thread needs to get coloured.This process to get it coloured is not just easy. Book a good guy who is bestat this and then also spend a 3-4 hours for the whole process is fun actually.
I bought thread –Sakal 8 – 2000 meter on Sunday, just 2 week ago of 14th Jan, to getthose colourwala free to get thread colour. But, my calculation went wrong. Nocolourwala was free to attain my order instantly but I got appointment on8:00PM of the same day. My cousins and me went there on time with our threads.We knew it will take around 3-4 hours so we were prepared for it. In talks ofkites, threads and fights time went fast and we easy passed 2 hours. But now itis high time our threads were coloured already but it needed to be dry. Itgoing to take 1 more hour so I went to the Lovely and took some “Annda Bhurji”as well as some boiled eggs to eat. It helped us to pass another 1 hour and ourthreads were ready. The time spent on road with cousins was remarkable.
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| Raipur Street |
On the next week Iwent to Kite Market at Raipur for shopping the kites. Kites are big business inAhmedabad. The preparation happens all year round and reaches the climax on theweeks before Uttarayan. Those nights, the main kite markets are open all nightlong. This place was so crowded that get out of that crowd without damagingyour kites is the biggest challenge especially when you are not used to it.
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| Firki |
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| Charkha |
So now kites + threadboth were set. Only 7 more day were to go. Days passed very well on job. On the13th Jan my company threw Pre-Kite Festival party. We flew kites,had kite fights and also had fun time with co-workers which was fun too. I leftoffice early as I had to do preparation for next day. Get home early, finishedall odd works and started tying knot to kite as tying knot is the time consumingthing and I really didn’t want to spend my time on that on 14th& 15th.
Technically, the knotshould be in 0-1 ratio, so that whenever you pull the thread, kite goes in todirection of its head.
Did that task till 2o’clock of night then turn on my laptop as I wanted to finish up some moreepisode of Heroes. (I had no watched that from last 2 weeks. So curiosity ofwhat happen next was on the peek.)
After watching backto back 3 episode of Heroes, I went to sleep.
On 14thJan I planned to woke up early and get on roof before 8:30AM but I couldn’t asI slept late and I regretted that.
I woke up at 8 gotready on 9 and got on roof on 9:30. Everything was good. Nice wind, sunshinemorning and sound system with playlist of awesome rocking songs. No one wasthere to stop me. But it last for only 4 hrs. After that, wind was gone andafter trying for some time I came back to home. In launch mom made Uttarayanspecial “Undhiyu” and Dad bring “Jalebi”.
The evening went samewith less support of wind but we had another enjoyment at evening. At eveningwe usually have a trend to fire the firecrackers and celebrate the evening ofUttarayan. Now a days people also fly the Chinese tukkal (lamp). The sky wasfull of lights of fire crackers and Chinese tukkals.
Fire Cracker Show at my place 14th Jan....
After passing sometime it was time for dinner and after dinner night session for kite fight. Itis amazing to fly kites at night because at night the kite fights are more fun.You can’t see the whole kite when it is in sky. One needs to concentrate a lot.
Next day i.e. 15thJan was a God Gifted day for us, as a wind was totally on our side. On that dayflying kite was not challenge, once didn’t need to try that hard to fly a kiteas wind was providing its support. That day went in shouting “lappet”, “kaapyo jchhe” and other sounds just like scream but in happiness. The fun and enjoymentincreased when my parents train tickets got cancelled and my father joined mein evening on roof. I must say he is best at kite fights. He cut others kite inamazing way. Me and my brother love to watch him flying kite.
Here are some pics of 15th Jan Pic. We were preparing for Chinese Tukkal. I was good experience.
This is how I enjoyed the most enjoyable days of this year. That’s why kite flying festival is not just an ordinary festival and something more to me and also for so many young Amdavadis. :)
We flew kites, we shouted, we did kite fights and we lighten the sky with fire cracker and lanterns ==> This is how I celebrate this Uttarayan.
All Fun is over and I back to my normal life having those wonderful memories in mind. I wish next this year brings more fun like this and I spend some more fun time with friends and family.