Tukkal

The evening of Uttrayan!

The gathering of the friends kind of continues in the evening. For the last 2 years this has been happening at my friends Niral and Pallavi’s house.

After some general merriment, we get down to the serious business of flying the tukkal. This is a heavy kite that is flown with a very strong and sharp thread and after it gathers a decent height, paper lanterns with candles in them are attached at various intervals.

Normally you will see 4 to 8 lanterns on each line. Last year our gang managed to put up 13 lanterns. This year we broke our own record and put up 16 lights. And it was a breathtaking sight.

If you aren’t careful, by the time you get to the last few lanterns, some of the previous ones start to burn, so you can’t afford to take too long about it. If you put them too close together then the kite and string can’t take the weight. So it’s all a matter of moving fast and precisely.

The other thing that you have to be very careful about is predators; people who fly normal kites and attack the tukkal trying to bring it down. To safeguard against this, there are usually at least 2 friends who will fly kites on either side of the tukkal at great heights to get rid of any of these predators, sort of like scouts.

As you can see it is all really good fun.

Makar Sankranti

This is a harvest festival celebrated on the 14th of January across the country. The names vary as do some of the ways of celebrating it.

Translated Makar is ‘Capricorn’ (as in the Zodiac sign) and Sankranti means ‘to change direction’. Put together the name of this festival denotes the transition of the sun into Capricorn. It is an auspicious time for us and also a time for great celebrations.

In Gujarat this day is called Uttrayan and is celebrated as the Kite Flying festival.

From the morning everyone climbs to their roof top terraces and the skies are covered with colorful kites. Music blasts from speakers all over and competition is fierce.

I am not a kite flyer myself, but I love going to my friends’ houses to share in the merriment. For many years’ friends living in the same colony as me used to host this day as an annual event. Sadly they shifted away, and that tradition came to an end.

Then I discovered that another friend, Inderjit, and his family also host this day as an annual event and I have been going there ever since. Being a Sikh family, they always have the most outstanding biryani for lunch. Before that there are snacks and punch and then fudge for dessert. They haven’t tried to change the menu for as long as I remember and thank god for that.

We hang around there for most of the day, going home only to crash out in the late afternoon.

The evening is another tale…

Happy 2006 everybody…

It’s been ages since I posted anything on this blog. But then it’s been a while since I celebrated a festival.

Usually the month of December here in Ahmedabad, means a month of parties and more parties. The weather is the best and the nights are long. Since we have hardly any ‘discos’ to go to, most of these parties are privately held. Those who are well networked into the social fabric of this town get invited to most of these dos. The rest try and wrangle invitations however they can.

This year for some reason I seem to have fallen of the social horizon, or maybe my generation is getting a little on the older side for the people who host parties. Either way, there weren’t too many of these parties to go for. And luckily it didn’t matter, because for a better part of the party month I was sitting sunning myself on the beaches of Goa with my family (will post a travelogue on my other blog soon).

Over the last few years Christmas / New Years has been becoming more and more popular even in the little town of mine. Buildings are lit up. Stores are decorated. There are loads of gifts for Children and Santa Claus is everywhere.

Christmas Eve 2005 I was in Delhi to celebrate my brother’s birthday (24th December) with him. We were all geared up to go party at a place in Noida, but circumstances made us turn back and we brought in Christmas at home watching the 3 Tenors live in Beijing on TV.

New Year’s Eve was much more fun. A friendhad invited me to join their gang at her place for a Barbeque. It was just 11 of us and it turned out to be one of the best parties I have been to in a long time. Thanks Apara for including me last night. There are some pictures but I will have to wait for Visha to send them to me. When she does I will place some here.

I don’t remember the last time I woke up on the 1st of January without a hangover. I take it as a good start to a new year.

Here’s wishing everyone a brilliant 2006!