‘Nobody sees our hard work’: Meet the people behind India’s colourful kite culture

And honestly, I was surprised. While my childhood memory of the August sky is full of kites, I haven’t really seen that craze anymore over the past few years. But the kite market reflected a contrasting reality.

Children stop to pick through the piles. People buy bundles. Shopkeepers keep pulling out more.

But what made me even more curious were the hands who made these. Who are they? Where are these colourful pieces of culture coming from?

The curiosity led me to a tiny, cramped lane in Lal Kuan. This is where I met Mintoo Lal and his nephew Ankit making kites in a compact room.

As the music from the ’90s Bollywood blasted the tiny space, Ankit kept finishing his kites, almost hypnotically; like a machine.

Ankit, a seasoned kite maker making plastic kites in Chandni Chowk’s Lal Kuan (Image: Vaibhavi Mishra)

His uncle, Lal, told me that this is just one part of the process. The kites would now go to the “ladies of the family”, who would add the last supporting tapes to their kites.

Turns out, Lal Kuan is the bustling hub of kites and kite makers. “So many kite makers come here at this time of the year. They rent out rooms and workshops, trying to make money,” Lal revealed.

The monthly rent? Not less than Rs 10,000 even for a small cramped room. And yet full attendance from faraway states.

Those who cannot afford Chandni Chowk sometimes end up going to cheaper places on the outskirts, such as Sultanpuri and Char Mohalla.

Lal further said that the shops too cost around Rs 1 lakh. “But not everyone here makes a profit.”

Mahboob Sky Kite’s Mahboob Ali, 40, a kite-maker from UP’s Rampur, echoes this. “Many people even take loans to travel to Delhi in peak season to earn money.”

Once the Independence Day season wraps up, they head to other destinations, Punjab, Ahmedabad, and Jammu being the most popular ones. The kite maker community thus keeps travelling through the country selling their craft. Lal Kuan calls them “banjara” (wanderers).

Rs 5 here, Rs 50 there

One of the workers from Lal Kuan’s Don Bhai Patang Wale (Image: Vaibhavi Mishra)

Lal seemed frustrated about the financial aspect of the job while revealing that even after making 1,000 pieces a day, an average maker usually earns Rs 200-Rs 500 as daily wages.

This manual labour only earns them enough to earn the daily bread. What adds to his anger and frustration is how the sellers buy these kites from him and sell them for higher prices right outside his colony.

“In Gujarat, these same kites which we make are sold for Rs 50. A Rs 5 kite sold for Rs 50!”

As Lal had shared, one can find many outstation sellers in the kite market – many of them generational kite sellers who also rent out primary location shops here in peak season.

I met plenty of such sellers from Jaipur who revealed that while Delhi’s Lal Kuan might have seen a slight dip in the crowd lately, Jaipur still has the kite scene bustling.

Another thing that bugs these hard-working kite makers is how under-appreciated they are. Mahboob laments the same.

“Humari mehnat kisi ko nahi dikhti… patang to har insan udana chahta hai magar har insan ko lagta hai ki sasti milni chahiye patang. Do minute me kat jati hai, fat jati hai. Par banti to bahut time me hai na (Nobody sees our hard work. Everyone wants to fly kites but they want to get it for low prices. Kites get torn easily but what about the time it takes to make them).”

A kite seller in Chandni Chowk (Image: Vaibhavi Mishra)

Mahboob has been making kites since he was eight. He learnt it from his ‘Masoor Bhai’. It is his full-time work even today. His routine is simple: he starts around 10.30 am, works till noon, takes a break and returns around 3 or 3.30 pm. From there, he keeps going till night.

In one day, he makes around 15-20 kites, all by hand. One kite costs him around Rs 15-20 to make. With better-quality paper, the cost can go up to around Rs 25. He sells it for Rs 35-40.

The money, clearly, is not the most exciting part of the job. “Is kam me baithak bahut hai. Baithna bahut padta hai. Aur isme koi budget wali cheez nahi hai (This is a very labour-intensive job and doesn’t pay very highly).”

But he does not speak like someone who simply chose this after comparing a list of career options. “Humme seekh liya hai to kar rahe hain kam. Humme hunar hain.”

He learnt it. He has the skill. So he does the work. And perhaps that is why the next few things he says sound less like a complaint and more like a plea to understand the other side of the bargain.

How many left the business

Women in Jamalpur locality of Ahmedabad making kites in preparation for “Uttarayan” or kite festival (Express photo by Javed Raja)

Mahboob reveals that many disheartened kite makers have now quit the craft and are doing other jobs like driving an auto-rickshaw. “Har chuke hain log karte karte… Kya karenge karke (People feel defeated… they feel why should they do it).”

Mahboob has even tried to find some financial support himself. He says he applied for a loan but did not get one. The paperwork was too intensive, and he ultimately gave up the idea. If you ask him why he can’t quit, he’d tell you that he is not young enough to learn a new skill now.

Will the legacy carry forward?

Despite the challenges, Mahboob has been trying to adapt to the needs of the new-age kite flyers.

“I even made a kite on cockroaches. They were in trend na!” he excitedly shares.

If you scroll through his profile, you’ll find more such innovative designs. And if you feed your algorithm rightly, you’ll find many such kite makers sharing their routine online.

While social media is not exactly helping them financially, Mahboob says he loves the “mohabbat” he has been receiving ever since he started sharing his kite videos on the internet.

 

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However, neither Mahboob nor Lal want their kids to follow this profession, and from what they reveal, the kids don’t want to do it either.

“Bachche humare interest nahi lete is kam mein. Wo kehte hain jab isme mehnat karke bhi roti na mile, toh bekar hai wo kam. Hum kar rahe hain to kar rahe hain, bachche nahi karenge ye sab agey (Our kids don’t take interest in this work. They say that if we can’t earn properly even after so much labour, it’s a waste. We are doing it but our kids won’t).”

Not everyone agrees that kite has lost its shine

If Mahboob sounds resigned, Don Bhai has a more upbeat story. He is around 35 now, but remembers a time when making kites was little more than pocket money for him. He earned around Rs 20 a day.

Today, he has his own workshop and workers.

His kites go beyond Delhi, to Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Agra. Punjab, he says, is one of his biggest markets. He gets customised orders and has even spent time teaching children at an international school how to make kites.

The designs have changed too. Don Bhai says there are now more than 100 varieties. He jokingly recalls an incident, holding his special boy-shaped kite, where his kite variety almost got him jailed.

“Mai ek bar phone me bolra tha ki 100 ladke Delhi me supply krdo, 100 ladkia Rampur… aur police wale ne pakad liya. Use laga mai ladke-ladki supply karta hu (Once I was on a call telling someone to supply 100 ‘boys’ to Delhi and 100 ‘girls’ to Rampur… and a policeman pulled me aside. He thought I was a human trafficker).”

But even he doesn’t want his children to take up the profession. They have watched the hours and the money closely enough.

‘Passion is in blood’

 

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Not every kite maker’s story is sad and full of poverty. When I spoke to Harjaap Singh, a kite maker based in Punjab’s Amritsar, the entire conversation changed.

“Aisi baat nahi hai, pehle craze tha par usse zyada ab hai (Nothing like that; the craze has in fact increased now),” he said. His team of five to seven makers produces around 200-300 kites a day by hand. Their kites travel across India and overseas, with orders going to Canada, Australia and Europe.

For him, people moving abroad has not meant the end of kite-flying. “Shauk to khoon mein hota hai (The passion is in the blood).”

People may move away, he says, but they do not necessarily forget what they grew up loving.

Punjab, according to Harjaap, has high demand through the year, with Lohri being particularly strong. He also reveals the special “kite spirit” in the agrarian state wherein kite enthusiasts in groups of 20-50 people gather at the ground simply to fly together in unity.

And, unlike Mahboob, Lal and Don Bhai, he wants his children to continue the profession.

For Harjaap, it is not simply a way to make money. There is a social life around it, a hobby and a reason to stay connected to people who enjoy the same thing. And the biggest of them, it keeps them away from drugs – a problem which has been gripping Punjab for long now.

Slow but flowing

 

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Gourav Rajput, a Bareilly kite-maker who goes by Kallu Raam Patang Saaj, sits somewhere between these two versions of the story.

When asked whether demand is low, he says, “Nhi theek hai demand (No, demand is fine).”

But actual flying has reduced, he feels. “Aj kal kam ud rahi hai patang (Fewer kites are being flown now).”

Phones, he believes, have something to do with it. People are spending more time on their screens and less time flying.

Gourav has been in the kite business for around 15 years and says one person can hand-make around 300 paper kites a day. Kites are made throughout the year, but the big selling periods change from place to place – August 15 in Delhi, Makar Sankranti in Ahmedabad and Gujarat, Rakhi in Jammu.

So while one maker sees fewer people looking up, another sees kites flying farther than ever before.

And then there was an 11-year-old

 

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A post shared by Mheboob Sky Kite (@mahboobskykite) 

Back in Lal Kuan, among all the colour and noise, an 11-year-old boy was sitting on a charpai by the roadside with a few kites spread around him.

He goes to school. He flies kites himself. He told me he once kept one flying for almost an hour without getting it cut.

But nobody was buying his kites that afternoon. He was shy, a little unsure while talking, and did not seem particularly excited about the selling. There was no big dream of becoming a kite maker, at least not one he spoke about.

It was an odd sight. Just a few metres away, people were buying bundles from established shops and makeshift stalls. Children were picking out designs. The market was full.

And here was a child sitting with kites that nobody wanted that afternoon.

Maybe that is why it is difficult to call kite-flying simply “dead” or “alive”.

The market is clearly there. The designs keep changing. The buyers are still coming. Some makers have built workshops, some have found markets in other states, and some are now sending kites overseas.

But the people behind the kites are living very different lives.

As per experts, kites have evolved over the years with more than a 100 varieties available now (Image: Vaibhavi Mishra)

Mahboob has spent most of his life learning one skill and now says there is little room to think about another.

Lal has watched workers come for the season and leave, and watched others abandon the trade for rickshaw driving and other work.

Don Bhai has turned Rs 20-a-day pocket money into a workshop.

Gourav says the phone has taken some people away from the sky.

Harjaap believes the craze is bigger than before.

And the children? Some are buying the kites. Some are selling them. The question is whether they will still be making them a few years from now. Because the kites in Chandni Chowk may keep getting brighter, bigger and stranger. But behind every one of them is still somebody who has to sit down, pick up the paper and start again.

DISCLAIMER: This article is based on information from the public domain and/or the experts we spoke to.