Taj Mahal, Gandhi, dinosaurs — hot air balloons soared over Delhi 50 years ago. But who started it?

The man behind Delhi’s first balloons was Vishwabandhu Gupta, the son of Lala Deshbandhu Gupta, a freedom fighter and member of the Constituent Assembly.

Vishwabandhu Gupta, head of the Tej-Bandhu media group who also served in Rajya Sabha in the 1980s, founded the Ballooning Club of India in 1970.

Hot air balloon shaped like the national emblem in front of Parliament. Special Arrangement.

For the next 15 years, Gupta, who desired to popularise ballooning in India, offered free, untethered rides to the public, said Anil Chopra, a veteran employee of the Tej Group who had worked with him.

After 1985, however, flights required security clearance from the Home Ministry, which rarely gave permission – forcing the club to take its rides to Damdama Lake in Haryana, Vrindavan in UP, and Jaipur and Jodhpur in Rajasthan. But its popularity suffered.

“We offered free flights at Damdama Lake in the morning. But people had to leave home before dawn to reach the lake by 5.30 am, where we had built a station. After the flight was over by 9.30 am, people would get back home only by afternoon,” Chopra said.

“It was also not commercially viable for us, considering the costs of the gas and a team of 7-8 people. We kept it going only because of Mr Gupta’s motivation and drive,” Chopra added.

Chopra recalled that in the early years, the balloons would wander all over Delhi. “Delhi used to be emptier then, with more places to land. The balloons would fly over India Gate, Sunder Nagar, and Nizamuddin, and people would gather on rooftops to wave,” he said.

For many years from 1985 onward, the club organised a week-long India International Balloon Mela in Delhi every November. (Special Arrangement)

For many years from 1985 onward, the club organised a week-long India International Balloon Mela in Delhi every November, which saw participation by teams from Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, the USSR, and the USA.

Twenty-five balloons raced from one end of Safdarjung airport to another, and were permitted to also roam above the city, Chopra said.

Gupta also organised cross-country ballooning trips so that people in rural areas could see the balloons.

A South India Safari was started in Hyderabad, and the club made at least one trip from Jaisalmer to Calcutta in 1987 and another from Leh to Kanyakumari in 1988.

In 1985, a balloon was built in the shape of the Congress election symbol ‘Hand’, which then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi signed; in 1992, the club created a balloon that resembled the Taj Mahal.

In August 1997, to mark 50 years of India’s independence, a balloon in the shape of the lion capital, the national emblem, was displayed outside Parliament House and at the Red Fort grounds.

But all this, and Gupta’s connections, could not save the Club from the tightening restrictions on air activity over the national capital of the country and the threat perceptions to the Prime Minister’s residence. In 2005, aviation authorities denied permission to host the Mela at the Safdarjung airport, which was shifted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium for the next three years. But the increasing restrictions and the lack of interest shown by the people leading to commercial infeasibility led to the Club not hosting the Balloon Mela after 2007 and shuttering operations.