After waking up at 3am this morning to drive back to Mumbai from Gujarat, I am finally here.
The kite festival, or Uttarayan as it is called, was awesome. I went to a city named Navsari on Tuesday night. We had some pav bhaji from a street vendor and drove through the kite market. The place was filled and the music was already blaring.
The following day, I woke up to the priests in the temple banging their bells at 5am, shortly followed by an overzealous DJ wannabe who hooked his computer up to speakers so that the entire neighborhood could hear.
We went up to the roof that morning and the sky was filled with kites. They are a little hard to see in the pictures, but the entire day was spent flying hundreds of kites. Everyone goes to their rooftop during this day and flies kites. While doing so, you attempt to cut neighboring kites' strings. This is done by using string that was specially coated with a paste made of ground glass. People receive some wicked cuts in the process.
So the summarize, the entire day was spent flying kites with the intermittent stop for food and water. I attempted to fly, but lasted for about 5 minutes before my kite took a nosedive after which, I sat in the corner and watched and took pictures.
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