An article by MathiRaj
Ever since the quarantine, the day to day life of everyone has been crashed and a new life has been started, well except for a few. For most of us, the new morning is 3:00PM and the new bed time is 5:00AM. Almost all of us have started spending most time watching Netflix, playing games or reading books
. Similarly, in the sub-urbs of Chennai, many people have started the long-lost recreation of flying kites, Pattam vidudhal as they like to refer to it. However, this fun has been banned by the government due to the hazards it holds within. The threads used to fly these kites are made using a mixture of powdered glass, hair, and other bizarre ingredients and can cause a serious threat of slitting the skin of the users and bystanders.
However, being bored out of their brains, people have started flying kites again. The activity is however really fun to watch. The kites are classified as Baana, Baambay, and Pilastic. The Baana is the largest kite, made with sticks and thin paper. It tends to fly up-to a height greater than a hundred feet.
The Baambay or ‘Bombay’ is comparatively smaller than the Baana kite and is similarly made from sticks and thin paper. The height this kite can reach is up-to fifty feet in the air.
The Pilastic or ‘Plastic’ is just as big as the Baambay kites but is made out of thin plastic sheets. It is much more durable than paper and tends to withstand stronger winds. Due to its durability, this kite flies as high as the Baana kites.
Flying kites itself is fun, but what is more exciting is having battles between kites. This game of kites is referred to as Deal poduradhu. This is where the importance of razor-sharp twines or Maanja as they call it come in. With the kite flying high up in the air along with several other kites, the unspoken rule is that the fittest is the one to survive. The person with experience along with a sharp and rugged twine tends to overlap the other kites flying and cut it off with a swift pull motion.
To gain respect and recognition in this infamous sport, one needs to snap off as many kites he/she can and must also gain the highest flight time.
With all the shops being closed, it was funny to notice how the kite flyers snapped the flying kites and used it as theirs. They treated each kite they knocked off as a medal. However, if a police jeep comes around, all the kites goes down. Sourced say that they saw piles of ceased kites inside police jeeps. Overall, collecting information to pen down this article was really fun to do during this lockdown.
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