By Nocy Rangsa Marak
Winter is the time when family and friends reunite for holidays making it a great festive season. It is also that time of the year for festivals of all kinds — be it food, traditional handicrafts, jewellery or cherry blossoms. But what about celebrating the azure sky? How about growing wings and going high up to the sun and back? Well, life isn’t a fairy tale but it is not that grim either. So you can let your imagination fly on the kite.
This was exactly what villagers and visitors did at Madan Wahsalu, Sabah Muswang village in West Janita Hills recently on the 2nd edition of the Kite Festival: Reliving the Memories, which reminded the grown-ups of the best experience from the younger care-free years.
The festival focused more on traditional activities, culture and form, while uplifting the local artist and talents.
Kite festival is not a new concept as Shillong had earlier witnessed a similar festival at the first Lasubon Kites Flying Festival at Shillong Golf Course in 2013. Organised by the state’s Tourism Department, the participation also witnessed reputed professional kite flyers from various kite flying associations of the country.
Since then, kite flying has been part of various festivals here and enjoyed by many people. It was proposed to be an annual affair but the same was never transpired until the first edition of ‘The Kite Festival’ held in November last year at the Mawphlang Sacred forest vicinity, which saw many kite and festival enthusiasts enjoying the moments.
Reviving the festival with the concept of reliving the memories seemed just apt. It was the place and occasion where people learnt, experienced and also partook in various activities as well as in the declining activity of flying a kite in this era of technology.
A prominent culture among the Asians, the history of kite flying is more than 200 years old with the evidence of kite flying in China. In this day and age we see plenty of kite flying festivals around the world and joining the league is Uttarayan in India, regarded as one of the biggest international festivals celebrated since 1989 in Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat.
In many countries kite-flying is more than a hobby but has religious or historical significance and the international festival of Uttarayan is a uniquely Gujarati phenomenon celebrated to welcome a new season. The Kite festival: Reliving the memories in Meghalaya lived up to its name.
Organised by Rympei Ventures Private Limited under the banner of its online portal rympei.com, Pyndap Lawriniang, director of Rympei, said to help uplift the local artist and talents, 500 kites were sanctioned and crafted by handicapped youths from Mawlai for the festival. Some of the participants brought their own kites and many availed them at the venue for a nominal price.
The sky over the village was crowded with kites of varied shapes, colours and sizes. There was a kite flying competition too where the winner was rewarded a cash prize of Rs 10,000. Besides kite flying, there were many other traditional games and activities, such as maw point, kynjat ball, along with sait khnam and kawang khnam (archery) competitions.
There were camping facilities by Go Northeast at the two-day festival, traditional delicacies and beverages with spacious parking area, sanitary lavatories, bonfire and entertainment with entry tickets for Rs 250 per day and Rs 500 with a complimentary drink for a day.
As it was aimed at promoting local talents, there were stalls displaying traditional dress, fashion show, traditional plate dance shad pliang, performance of local drum beat Seng khasi or snap paka and a line-up of musical performances by renowned bands, including rockstars from yesteryears like Halcom Tariang, vocalist from the legendary band from the 70’s King Apple, and Tirot Singh awardee and renowned singer Headingson Rynthaniang.
Other artists included Gracyl Ropmay, one of the top female artists from West Jainita Hills, Light after Dark, a band of visually impaired artists, and 4th Element, the only band in the North East that bends and blends the four styles of funk, jazz, R’n’B and soul.
Then there were bands like Colours with their essence of producing unique sounds, incorporating all genres of music; Different Matters experimenting with new sounds of progressive beats, poignant lyrics and engaging showmanship; Rum & Monkeys, Melomindz, Distant Dreams, Haystack Ladies and many more. Along with the programme ending in a DJ set for both days by DJ Banshan and DJ Yanee.
A special food pop-up by E’sal serving traditional Garo and modern progressive cuisines was a crowd-puller on the last day. Their signature cabbage roll dumplings along with other traditional and innovative cuisines were reviewed ‘delicious’ by many who’ve tried it at their pop-ups at farmers’ market, various events and festivals.
This is an annual event and will be back next year with the promise to fly higher.
(The author is a graphic designer who is intrigued by new places, food, culture and music)