The Color Caravan: The Art of making Kites

Delhi has quite the history with kites. Being a kid in the streets of Delhi, you realize the tradition of flying kites on India's Independence Day celebrations in August every year. So how could we miss out on this tradition while many a rooftops were abuzz with energy for the 'pench larana'!

So to fulfill our part in this tradition, we chose August 13^th as the day for an amazing and artsy kite-making workshop for kids!

Early in the morning The Color Caravan set out with Eureka! Bookstore with many enthusiastic kids and our amazing kite-makers Touseef Miya and Shahvez from Rampur in tow for the workshop at Bumble Bees and what a fun-filled day it was! Colorful papers, scissors, sticks; everything was flying around inside the bookstore weaving magic.

It was simply amazing how the kids put in all their creative powers into making these kites, getting right away into the business of getting dirty with the glue and colours. Greens and blues and reds, it was as if the books themselves had come to life! Any inhibitions that the kids felt just melted away as the hours passed away in the making of the kites.

But it were the kite-makers who stole the show for us that day. Our Kite-Masters enthralled the children with the retelling of the history of kites. For stories and theories suggest that China was home to the birth of kites while many others believe that Gengis Khan and his Mongolian soldiers brought kites during their invasions. But what is more intriguing is the history of our kite-makers themselves. They are the descendants of the many generations of Rohillas from Rampur, a family intensely involved in the craft of kite-making. They came to India around 1680 from the mountains of Afghanistan, settling down in the Terai region of India. Their stories are vivid, just like the kites that the children had created.