Kite-flying

I left home for my daily walk. It was evening. I entered a street from Doaba moving towards Mumtaz Colony. That is a long street that leads straight to Makki Shah. Children were playing in the street. Since the Basant festival is coming close, the craze for flying kites is on the rise. Children like kites so much. Its design and colors are so fascinating. So whatever you offer to children instead of kites, they would reject. They are stubborn about kite-flying in the street or on the roof of their home.

A child in the street was flying a kite with a simple thread in his hand. As I approached him, his kite came up to my neck. I put one hand forward to prevent the kite thread from getting caught in my neck. The child was about five years old, but what he said shocked me. He said that if I had not put forward my hand, he would have cut my neck!

The child was innocent, but he knew that the kite could cut the neck. Such incidents are common in Pakistan. Especially when the season of the Basant (Spring) comes, the sky becomes colorful with kites. The dangerous thing about kite-flying is their threads, which are prepared in a very harmful way. The powder of glass is rubbed on threads. Although, the intent behind this risky and unsafe practice is to cut the kites of others yet this practice has brought many incidents of cutting human necks or other parts of the body. There have been many cases of deaths due to kite flying in Pakistan, which has led to a government ban on kite flying for almost two decades. House roofs are used for flying kites. Incidents occur especially in dense urban populations.

If we look at the history of kite flying, it was initially used by soldiers to send messages. In ancient China, soldiers used kites to convey messages from one camp to another. We also find the use of kites in some Buddhist practices in China. The practice of kite flying in the Indian subcontinent dates back to the Mughal period. Signs of this hobby have been found in the paintings of this period. There are many local love stories associated with kite flying. Then kite flying gradually became a hobby of the people. This entertainment was banned due to the use of illegal methods for kite flying. Thus, the splendor of the Basant season faded, but this amusing practice is still going on in the world with peace and ease.

The real issue that needs to be brought to your attention is that an innocent child who has a kite in his hand but knows that the kite cuts someone’s throat. This is worrying. An innocent child should have the concept of playing with a kite in his mind, not of blood. The point to think about is how we are raising our children, the child telling a passer-by I will cut your throat. Tomorrow when he grows up he can commit any violent act or activity.

Kite flying is a fun and hobby, but it has been used so illegally to such a level that even our children's minds are negatively affected. It would have been better if that child had said to me, Uncle, bring your kite too, let's fly them together. Anyway, Kite-flying is a joyous hobby, in which everyone; child or adult, boy or girl, regardless of color, caste and class participates. This hobby is not costly. You bought a kite and thread for a few rupees, climbed on the roof, and started flying. Would that, we understand a kite makes how many people meet when it is cut in the air and they run altogether to catch it before falling on the ground.