Celebrating Sankranti, International Kite Flying Competition starts at Parade Ground

Hyderabad: The festival of Sankranti is knocking on our doorsteps and it's time to get into the festive mode and celebrate it with complete zeal and positivity. The pre-festivities have already started and one can see kites dancing in the sky already. Amid these cheerful celebrations, the 5th International Kite Festival was kick-started on Monday.

The festival was inaugurated in the popular Parade ground which witnessed lakhs of people from around the city turn up.

To participate in the Kite flying competition, Kite flying clubs for 15 countries have come. The countries participated are – Singapore, Australia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Cambodia, Switzerland, Scotland, Turkey, Israel, Netherlands, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and Thailand. Within the country, people from five states – Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala including Telangana attended the event.

Speaking to Newsmeter, Sebastian from Germany said, “I am in India for the first time. Everyone here is so nice and friendly. It's great. I have been to kite festivals around the world – Canada, USA, Poland and Spain. I have made lots of kites myself. I am 30 years old but I flew kites all my life. I have been flying kites since 25 years.”

“We have started a kite club, Team Mangalore 27 years back as a hobby group. We have been to France and other foreign countries. We use our own hand-made kites made of ‘Ripstop’. It is generally used for making parachutes. We have our own artist and a team of people who sit together on weekends and work on the kites. It takes 4-5 months to make a kite. 14 years back, we entered into the Limca Book of Records for the biggest hand-made kite. It is a 36-feet kite in the shape of Kathakali.” Says Harsha Samraj from Mangalore.

Besides the International Kite Festival, it's also the 3rd edition of the International Sweet Festival. There are various kinds of sweets from different states. The people at the sweet counters were also dressed in their traditional attire.

The fest is eco-friendly as no plastic manjas are being used. To ensure that there is a variety of entertainment activities, The Sports Authority of Telangana has organized many traditional games for children. The main attraction of the fest is the night-time kite flying.

The International Kite and Sweet festival will be on till January 15.