Revellers taking part in the Basant festival, which marks the start of the spring in Punjab, spend millions of rupees on day-and-night kite battles and the skies are filled with the brightly coloured toys.Kite battles. Rival kites. Dangerous string.
Many people use strings coated with a paste containing glass powder or with iron wool to sever the strings of rival kites. But the cords have also claimed the lives of 10 people, most of them children, police and newspapers said.
Most are killed when the strings fall across roads at head height and slit the throats of people on motorbikes.
March 10, 2006
1,000 kite fliers arrested in Pakistan.
But it's not because of fundamentalist opposition to kite-flying. It's about dangerous string.
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8 comments:
Kites,Knowledge,Metaphysicians
They were flying kites
I cursed the wind
I guess they thought I'd sinned
for slandering such heights
sought by their paper kites
when they were on the other end
LDM
Dueling kites.
Word verification: bblgrf
Meaning: Pakistani for "Damn it! You just cut my string."
Killing people with kite string? That's something a bond villain would do in the 70's.
Fighter kites rule! Pretty cheap too, compared to all the 4-line stunt kites. Takes more skill skill to fly, as well.
"You've got to hand it to people in the Muslim world for finding really dangerous ways to celebrate."
I don't think it's just the Muslim world. How many people in the US blow their hands and faces off with fireworks every year?
LIGHT BLOOMING GROUND FLOWER AND GET AWAY WITH LOUD REPORT
Killer Kite Stalks Shreveport Pilots
Sounds like someone needs to introduce the third world to the relative safety of fireworks!
Wait... Aren't a lot of extra-legal fireworks from Mexico (and/or China)?
Kite wars was also the sport in Santiago, Chile when I lived there. As I recall, September was the month for kite flying.
It was incredibly entertaining to watch - something like a National Geographic special on lions. The kite flyers would be miles apart, but could be seen stalking one another in the air. People would stop whatever they were doing to watch and see who won by cutting the others string first.
Cut strings coming down and killing people sounds a little odd, but I could see the danger. It was not uncommon to see the string being wrapped between two trees or poles in a yard so the glue with glass could be applied and allowed to dry.
I often wondered if anyone ran into them then.
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