Festivals in the Pink City

Last week I travelled to Jaipur to observe Makar Sakranti. The mid-winter harvest is popular in Jaipur and is one of the biggest celebrations. It marks the transition of the sun from the zodiac Saggitarius to Capricorn. People celebrate by flying kites in the day and lighting fireworks and lanterns at night. As a result most people spend the day hopping from one terrace to another.

I tried my hand at flying kites as well, although I had little success. It is a very instinct based skill, a bit like surfing. You need to flick the dor (the string attached to the kite) in quick succession so that the kite moves in the direction the nose is pointing to. By keeping a keen eye on kite you can move it as intended. While some people fly kites for leisure, there are certainly more competitive folk who compete by having the last kite in the sky. They do this by cutting the dor of the competition leaving the kite to submit to nature and fall down like a leaf. There are also mischievous cretins who cut kites purely for fun (it is a bit fun). One such person was bullying our neighborhood and preventing other kites from flying high, frustrating my cousin brother who was out there trying to teach me the skill.

Following Sakrant was the The Jaipur Litfest, name is pretty self explanatory. It is a cultural event celebrating authors and poets. Authors from all over the world come and talk about their books as well as subjects of interest. I only attended the first day where I sat through an interview of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. He was there to promote his book 'The Seven Rules of Trust', the talk was interesting and I ended up buying his book. I am halfway through and defenitely reccomend the read. The book is informative and easy to read. There are many anecdotes about Wikipedia and other historic events that make it easy to follow.

Next stop this week is Bombay. I am going to attend Lollapalooza as well as take part in the Global Game Jam.

~sailboat642