Makara Sankranthi

January 14th was a holiday called Makara Sankranthi. After reading wikipedia, I learned that it was a day that signals the beginning of the harvest in India, but nowadays, as most ISB students told me, it is a celebration of the sun... and a reason to fly kites!We heard there was a kite festival going on in Hyderabad, but since I had class and getting into the main part of Hyderabad is a 30-45 minute dusty ride in an autorickshaw, we decided instead to join a group of ISB students who were flying kites in front of the recreational center.

We found these kites to be different from ones we've seen in the U.S.; basically it was a cellophane sheet cut into a square with thin wooden sticks supporting it. Very cheap and perfect for picking up a very light wind!

It was neat watching the students get them into the air; basically the kites get tugged into the air by their strings, and that's how they are maintained in the sky as well. More challenging then it looked!

Happy Sankranthi!