Glass-coated kite-strings get deadlier

“I was driving the scooter and Debanshu was standing in front. Suddenly, a kite drifted down in front of the scooter and a street kid rushed over to grab it. I applied brakes and the boy jumped sideways. Since I thought he had let of the kite, I drove ahead. But then the boy grabbed the manja and pulled it towards him. In no time, it had slashed my son’s throat. He was bleeding profusely and while we were rushing him to V.S. hospital, he died,” recalls Debanshu’s grief-stricken father who works with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

There is no control of any kind, nor any standards for manja-making. “There is no ISI accreditation required on the manjas and hence the kite-makers are mixing more and more crushed glass to the thread, which turns out to be fatal,” says H.L. Kaul, PRO of Bureau of Indian Standards.

“Customers demand sharper manjas and so the makers make it. You can’t blame them,” says Puroshottam Parekh, a kite and manja-maker who sells manjas under the brand name Parekh Manjas. He admits that many kite makers mix abnormally high quantities of glass powder. “Nobody thinks of how much glass should be ideally mixed as they fear their manja won’t sell otherwise,” explains Parekh.

Another such deadly manja almost cost Sagarbhai Desai his life. “He was driving his vehicle along with his friend near Memnagar when a manja slashed his neck. The cut is very wide but luckily not deep; Sagarbhai has got 12 stitches,” says his younger brother, since Sagarbhai can’t talk because of the injury to his throat.

The families are cursing both the government and the festival. “Why doesn’t the government ban kite-flying on the roads? Every year, a number of deaths take place and no one is held hold guilty. The police should also do its duty by not allowing any kite flyers on the roads but nobody does anything,” says Debanshu’s sobbing father.

Most pass off the incidents as accidents. “Accidents happen in other festivals as well,” says Dilip Sartanbhai Shah, a kite enthusiast. Old timers, however, say these manja deaths are a recent occurrence. “Accidents used to happen earlier too but they occurred when children fell from rooftops or such things. Deaths caused by manjas have started only in the past 10-15 years and they are very dangerous. I always tell my children to wear helmets or wrap their faces with scarves while driving on two-wheelers as they may get hurt by the manja,” says 63-year-old Anirudhbhai Patel, a former bank employee who lives in Satellite.