At least 11 people died and more than 100 people were injured at an annual spring festival in eastern Pakistan celebrated with the flying of thousands of colourful kites, officials said today.
Seems that kite flying is a major competition in some friendly places in the world.
The deaths and injuries were caused by stray bullets, sharpened kite-strings, electrocution and people falling off rooftops yesterday at the conclusion of the two-day Basant festival, said Ruqia Bano, spokeswoman for emergency service in the city of Lahore.
Hmmm. No wonder the Taliban banned kites!
Kites must be a conspiracy by the West to kill Muslims.
Excellent book about this:
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, won all sorts of literary awards.
WTF?! From kites??? This is funny shit. But still sad.
Stolen from digg
When are you guys going to update wordpress?
4,
So, DIGG is now an independent news source that fields it’s own journalists?
Jackass…
How in the hell do you sharpen a kite string?!?!?
Sharpened Kite strings. When the thread is colored and cured, it is soaked in starch together with finely crushed glass. It is then dried and then rolled into a ball to be sold. Hence the term Sharp Kite String. The sharper it is the better to “fight” and cut other kite strings and hence win a victory over the other kite flyers. Thats how we do it in Punjab.
You have to get used to using the sharp string as it will cut your fingers too!!!
I used to kite fight as a teen.. fun stuff.. never busted a cap over it though.
we didn’t sharpen our string either.. the object was to make the other guy crash by flipping his tail to the top of the kite and making his do a nose dive
anyone besides me remember those inflatable kites from the 70s?
I guess they could have been filled with fuel-air explosive …
> Kites must be a conspiracy by the West to kill Muslims.
How egotistical! The radicals hate other people too! It not all about you. 😉
Conservative Mullahs actually are VERY against kite flying but they blame the HIndus because of the Basant but — in Pakistan — it has mostly lost its religious component.
I was in Lahore for last Basant and saw a banner which said, “Kite fling is from Satan and will send you to hell.”
>># How in the hell do you sharpen a kite string?!?!?
They encrust the string with glass! I’m not sure how they get it to stick on.
Even worse, they sometimes use thin wire (like piano string?) which is INSANE because it kills you if it hits a wire which, of course, happens all the time in kite flying.
Falling off rooftops is common but I’ve never heard that there are any more gun deths than usual in a huge city the size of Lahore.
> Kites must be a conspiracy by the West to kill Muslims.
How egotistical! The radicals hate other people too! It not all about you. 😉
Conservative Mullahs actually are VERY against kite flying but they blame the HIndus because of the Basant but — in Pakistan — it has mostly lost its religious component.
I was in Lahore for last Basant and saw a banner which said, “Kite fling is from Satan and will send you to hell.”
>># How in the hell do you sharpen a kite string?!?!?
They encrust the string with glass! I’m not sure how they get it to stick on.
Even worse, they sometimes use thin wire (like piano string?) which is INSANE because it kills you if it hits a wire which, of course, happens all the time in kite flying.
Falling off rooftops is common but I’ve never heard that there are any more gun deaths than usual in a huge city the size of Lahore.
I can see why religious control freaks would see threatening overtones to kite flying. There’s a meditative, zen aspect to it that on a good day with a well balanced kite can sink you into just being there, for hours. I used to do that with my son on warm spring days, before he had the ill grace to grow up, have a couple kids and turn 30. Bastard. Maybe I need some kite flying now.
I was wondering how to sharpen the string. Thanks Lavi and Greg.
13,
Got a competition to attend?
WooHoo…party down!