Uttarayan, the kite festival, is a beautiful way of welcoming the spring season in India. Make the skies look gorgeous with colourful skies even with cramped city spaces!
Someone who lives in a 4×4 house in a metro, usually lands up losing out on the joys of fun festivities. A festival like Uttarayan(Kite festival), also known as Sankranti, ideally needs a lot of open space. As if space crunch wasn’t the only issue we had! To block our kite flying experience we have mobile towers, dish antennas, electric poles, hoardings, taller building by the side of your house and we could keep counting… How does one fight these sky blocks to enjoy the kite festival?
Having grown up to movies like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Kai Po Che!, we secretly want dance on the roof tops, play kite fights and eat kilograms of Gujarati snacks and find a cute girl… We gave this urban crisis a thought and came out with the following solutions!
Rent out a terrace You already are an element of envy among your friends if your house has a beautiful terrace. This could be your chance to make money and get yourself paid back for all the happening terrace parties that you have hosted! Rent your space out to neighbour or friends and let them enjoy the festival. Ideally you could charge per group. Keep it to a small group as the kite flyers would need space to move around. And if you have a really large place, then host two groups; that way it would become a competition in itself (obviously Bollywood style!).
Befriend a pent house ownerYou really want to have fun? Then in this mean world be slightly smart! Befriend a penthouse owner. This could be your investment for live. If your penthouse friend isn’t too keen on celebrating Uttarayan, make sure you develop interest in them, slowly and smartly, all through the year! Just because we ask you be smart, don’t be all selfish, be a good friend too!
Go to the nearest playground Neither you, nor your friends have a house that has space on the terrace, then this could be your last resort! Scout for a ground large enough to fly kites in your city. We would suggest you check for the availability a bit in advance and figure that the ground is going to be open or not booked for some match or a function. Once that is checked get your friends there to compete against them.
Keep scanning gig guides This is the least you could do, if you really wanted to celebrate Uttarayan. In cities such as Mumbai, that is home to a lot of Gujaratis, there are communities that host open for all kite flying events (Just like Dandiya nights). You could keep a track on the where abouts of these events and become a part of the larger than life celebration. It would, for sure, not be as crowded as Falguni Pathak’s dandiya night but will have all the flavour of the festival just about right. Not to forget, the live food stalls that would serve fresh food. This sure would be worth every penny you shell out!
