City celebrates kite fest with elan

Thousands of visitors across all age groups gathered at Gandhi Maidan on Sunday to be a part of the kite festival on the eve of Makar Sankranti. Organised by Sri Krishna Smarak Vikas Samiti with a motto, ‘one sky, one world’, Patang Umang-2018 saw over 15,000 visitors flying kites, participating in various contests, enjoying celebrity performances, musical programmes, eating and making merry.PT went around taking a look at various activities that made the day memorable.
Cultural fest
Local singers Jigyasa Jagwar and Binoy Roy enthralled the audiences with live performances. People in ethnic attires played traditional musical instruments while local artistes performed a skit on abolishing social evils like child marriage and dowry. Actress Anurita Jha was seen interacting with people.
Kite stalls
A stall was put up by the organising team selling a variety of kites priced between `5 and `1,200. Designer kites with eagles and cartoon prints apart from Modi kites were in huge demand. Dahi-chura and jalebi were a hit at the food counters. People were seen buying the combo packs of curd, flattened rice, jaggery, jalebi and tilkut selling at `50 per packet.
Message to the world
Many kites had slogans like beti bachao beti padhao, unity in diversity, save trees, save word, swachh Bihar, go green and so on. These slogans aimed at promoting the government’s schemes like Saat Nischay (seven resolves), campaign against dowry and abolition of child marriage.
Esteemed guests
Patna divisional commissioner Anand Kishor and district magistrate Kumar Ravi enjoyed the festival to the hilt. They even tried their hands at flying kites with the masses. Kumar Ravi reminisced his childhood days when he used to regularly fly kites with friends.
Competitions galore
There were a number of competitions like kite flying, kite making and slogan writing. There was a kite workshop too for children aged between 5 and 13 years. The kids were explained all about kite flying.
Kite experts
Two professional kite flyers, Sujeet Choudhary and Dipak Mishra, flew down from New Delhi to take part in the festival. These flyers had brought 50 pieces of designer and 50 basic kites that can be easily manoeuvred with cotton threads, so that birds are out of harm’s way. They also participated in the kite flying contest. While Deepak Mishra won the first prize, Sujeet Choudhary bagged the second prize. Nandan Kumar, a student of Patna College, secured the third position. All the winners were awarded a cash prize of `5,000, `3,000 and `2,000 respectively.