Before leaving India for my job in the Dominican, I return to Gujarat for Uttarayan, the kite festival. The air is crisp and moving on a stiff breeze in Ahmedabad where people are flying kites from roofs, balconies, bridges, and the side of the road. Except for this, the streets Tulsi and I pass on the bus ride from Ahmadabad to Baroda are unusually quiet. The contrast is sharp with the holiday mood we enter at Tulsi’s oldest cousin’s house. The family and friends are gathered on the roof, taking turns launching kites in to the air and holding the attached reels of string. Shivang and his older brother have come up for the festival as well as cousins from Seattle. Bhavi, whose 13 birthday party I attended the first week I was in India, holds the reel as Tulsi dangles a kite into the breeze. Kids blow on paper horns and lean on mothers sitting on mats in the shade as they tie leads on stacks of paper kites.
We are finally cajoled down for lunch before heading into the old downtown area. It’s narrow lanes are nearly deserted. We climb to the terrace and see that the city has shifted to its roofs. The sky is filed with colorful, fluttering kites. Birds wheel away, displaced from their many customary ledges. Music is blasting from every fourth house and competitive shouts ring out as kites are cut. Fireworks and hot air balloons punctuate the scene. I join in, clumsily jerking kites into the air or taking over a high flying one when someone looses interest.
Everyone is involved in the festival: an elderly man sits with a grandchild patching kites, kids are pulling in the strings of downed kites, aunties emerge from the house bearing fried snacks. As the sun goes down the focus shifts away from kites (though there are still plenty in the air) and toward the dance parties and fireworks. We climb over a few neighboring terraces to join the roof with enormous speakers then head back down to eat the traditional meal. We sit around to listen to songs in Gujarati sung by a portly, joking uncle.
The next morning we eat breakfast and fly a few kites before catching the bus back to Ahmadabad with the Mumbai cousins. Here too the streets are relatively empty but the house is full of Tulsi’s grandpa’s siblings since he’s just come back from the US. They gather in the sitting room while Ankit (the cousin we’ve signed up at the marriage bureau) meets with a perspective bride and her mother in another room. Other cousins from Tulsi’s moms side come over as well and we head up to fly a kite with the rest of the neighborhood covering their roofs before dinner. The trees are blooming with multi-colored crepe paper and the streets are strewn with fuchsia and yellow strings. People compare the cuts inflicted on their hands as proud battle wounds.
The chaos subsides only slightly before it is midnight and I’m cutting my birthday cake, having frosting smeared on my face, and feeding a bite to each person. Then we head to cousins of Shivang’s place (to the roof of course) where a large, stable kite is launched. Once securely in the air, paper lanterns with flashing plastic lights are tied to the string and spun out into the night sky. It’s much later then most are flying lighted kites but we see one more with the traditional yellow light of a candle bobbing across the city. Once the cousins have turned to their paan masala flavored hookah, I hold the kite’s string and watch it turn and dip between me and the stars. I’ve had a beautiful birthday and am so lucky to lead the life I do. India has certainly been good to me and I will be sad to leave.
