Kites Ho!

If any of you watch The Big Bang Theory, you may remember this episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YT4og9mu0E&NR=1
That is exactly what I did this weekend.  And yes, I did get string burn.

I woke up early Friday morning to leave for Surat, a city 6 hours north of Mumbai.  Rajiv's wife has some family up there, and in fact, her cousin Vishal had planned the whole weekend out for us.  When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed and went out to lunch in an auto-rickshaw (an open door, three-wheeled vehicle which has room to seat three people, but often seats many more.  We didn't go too crazy- we only had four people in our rickshaw.)  As for the restaurant... It was exactly like Fogo de Chao (except with Indian vegetables instead of Brazilian steak haha).  Basically, waiters continuously walked around with trays of different vegetables, breads, and sweets and kept piling food on our plates.  All you can eat Indian buffet delivered to your table.  Score!  The food was absolutely delicious.  In fact, it was my favorite meal in India so far.  There is a saying: "Surat nu jaman ane Kashi nu maran!” (Fortunate is the man who can dine in Surat and die in Kashi!)  In other words, Surat is known for their food.  They are also known for their fun.

Me and my patang.

The reason we went up to Surat for the weekend was for acclaimed Utran, the Hindu kite-flying festival.  (Even though it is a Hindu festival, every religion celebrates it.  In fact, that is one thing that people like about Surat; since there are so many religions, there are a lot of festivals.  And since everyone celebrates every festival, regardless of religion... That is a lot of fun lol.)  Every year, on the night of January 13th, the streets of Surat are closed off so people can bid on and buy kites.  For the next three days, everyone from the city goes up on the rooftops and flies their kites.  When I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE.  We arrived on the 14th, so although we did not get to experience the kite-bidding, we did get to enjoy the main part of the festival.  Vishal had bought 150 kites for us the day before, so we were set!

Now you may be asking, "150 kites?!?! That is so many!! Why would anyone ever need 150 kites???"  Let me be a little more specific: This is not just kite flying, this is kite fighting.  The goal is to keep your kite in the air as long as possible while cutting down the other kites in the sky.  The kite string used is extremely thin, pretty weak (you can rip it if you yank somewhat hard), and covered in a broken-glass powder to facilitate cutting down other kites. If I was able to keep my kite up for more than two minutes, I considered it a success.  There were A LOT of kites in the sky.

You can tell that Vishal (black shirt) is excited to fly some kites!!  He actually is a very good dancer; he used to choreograph Bollywood dances, but now just occasionally choreographs dances for Indian weddings.

Now I will attempt to set the scene for you and post a bunch of pictures/video, but no matter how detailed my description, no matter how clear the pictures, nothing will compare to actually being there and seeing it for yourself.  There were two giant speakers on the roof, blasting everything from YMCA to Waving Flag to Mambo No. 5 to a bunch of Indian songs.  There were around 30 people on my roof, all of whom were extremely nice, most of whom did not speak very much English.  It took two people to fly each kite; one to hold the spool and one to actually direct the kite (let it go higher, bring it down, steer it around strings to avoid getting cut, etc.).  My roof had at least 10 kites in the air at any given time, and when people were not flying kites, they prepping their next kite to go up in the air.  Watching someone prepare a kite for flight was actually pretty entertaining.  You have to poke four holes in it, loop a small piece of string through them, tie it tight, tie that string to a spool of string, and then rub the kite on your head in order to bend the corners of the kite upwards to give it better lift.  People would bang on metal pans and chant when they cut down a kite.  It was insane.

Flying a kite with my assistant, Rajiv.

When the sun finally began to set, some people on other roofs began shooting off fireworks.  Other roofs flew kites with candles attached.  My roof?  We chose to dance.

and dance

and dance.

Around 9:00, we decided that it was about time to pack it up and head to dinner.  The restaurant we decided to go to was 20 km away (about 12 miles).  How did I get there?

Yep.  Motorcycle.  I was pretty scared of riding on the back of a motorcycle in all of that crazy traffic (without a helmet), but I didn't have to worry; I wasn't in the back, I was in the middle.  Yep, three people on the bike. But its okay, we didn't drive too fast.  Remember all those kites that people had been flying all day?  Well, sooner or later, every single one was cut down.  When a kite got cut down, it either fell to the ground, was caught by someone on another rooftop, or got stuck in a tree/on an electrical wire.  In the last case, though the main part of the kite was stuck on the wire, its string would dangle in the road.  The glass covered, nearly invisible string.  Driving slowly was a legitimate precaution- he didn't want any of us to cut our faces or throats on these hanging strings.  That actually happens.  (I didn't find that out until the next day.  If I had known, I would have never hopped on the motorcycle.)  Therefore, the following video I took while on the motorcycle does not do justice to India's traffic (which is usually much more intense), but it should at least give you a idea about how crazy it is.


Dinner was also amazing.  Surprise surprise.  Nothing much else happened that night, just went back to Vishal's place and crashed there.  Though there were a lot of people staying at their apartment, I was given my own room, with my own bathroom and everything.  Which was good, since later that night/the next morning I fell sick.  However, it was an Indian style toilet.  Never used one before.  Wasn't exactly the ideal time to figure it out, but ah well.  Shit happens.