The day the sun turns north
In the walled city kite day is now the most democratic festival of the year. The jeweller and his apprentice, the grandmother in her shawl and the boy from the tea stall are all on a roof, all looking up, all trying to cut each other's string.
Sankranti: the passage of the sun from one sign of the zodiac into the next. There are twelve in a year, but the one that matters is Makar Sankranti.
Uttarayan: it marks the start of the half of the year in which the sun travels north, and the slow return of long days and warm afternoons after the cold weeks of December.
- When
- 14 January, sometimes 15 January
- Why fixed
- A solar date, not a lunar one
- Marks
- The sun entering Makara, Capricorn
- Best city
- Jaipur's walled city, rooftop to rooftop
- The cry
- Woh kata, when you cut a rival's kite
- A steady date: Diwali and Holi drift by weeks from year to year, but Sankranti does not. We confirm the date each year, but you can plan around mid-January with confidence.
- A harvest festival: for farmers across north India, winter wheat and mustard are growing well and the sugarcane is being crushed.
- Daan: families wake early, bathe and give gifts to those who need them: sesame, jaggery, blankets, grain, a little money.
- In the villages: women feed green fodder to cows, and many people visit a temple or a sacred tank.
- Holy water: at Galtaji in the hills east of Jaipur, pilgrims bathe in the spring-fed kunds at dawn, and at Pushkar the ghats are busy before the sun is up.
- Then the roofs fill: nobody quite agrees when kite flying became the centre of the day here. Our elders talk as if it always was, and kites were flown at the courts of north India for centuries.
- Royal roofs too: the City Palace roofs join in.
- Jaipur in one day: monuments tell you how the kings lived. Kite day shows how the city lives together, packed close, competitive, generous and loud.
- The religious side: our page on Makar Sankranti covers it in depth. This page is about the kites, and the best seat for them.
Kite day in the walled city, hour by hour
Before sunrise, bathing and giving
Bells and smoke: the day starts with temple bells and the smoke of small fires. Families bathe, light a lamp and make their offerings.
- The first knock: often from those who come for daan. Out in the lanes, cows are fed.
- An empty sky: bird lovers and rescue volunteers ask everyone to keep the sky clear in the first hours of daylight, when pigeons, parakeets and kites, the birds, leave their roosts.
- We start late: on purpose, with a warm breakfast.
Mid-morning, the first kites go up
Nine or ten: the roofs are filling, and music begins from small speakers propped on water tanks.
- Testing: children run up the stairs with bundles of kites, and the first rise slowly over the parapets, tested and trimmed.
- The wind: a light, steady breeze from the north-west is what everyone hopes for. On a still day, the skill is all in the launch.
Midday, the sky fills
- Crowded sky: by lunchtime it stretches from Nahargarh ridge to the far gates, and the duels begin in earnest.
- Lunch standing up: hot pakodi, sesame sweets and whatever the household has cooked. Our hosts serve you on the roof so you miss nothing.
Afternoon, the great battles
The duel: two strings cross, the fliers feel the contact, one pulls hard, the other lets out line, and a moment later one kite drifts free.
- Woh kata: the cry goes up from the winning roof, there it goes, cut, and from the next roof come groans and laughter.
- Loose kites: they float down into the lanes, where children chase them with long bamboo poles.
Dusk, bringing the kites home
Gold light: as the walls turn rose, the kites come down.
- Birds again: this is the second hour when birds move, and Jaipur's administration and bird-rescue groups now ask people to keep the sky clear around dawn and dusk.
- Tidying up: we wind our spools in, gather any string fallen on our roof and watch the last kites circle home.
After dark, lamps and fireworks
Lamps: many families light small lamps along the parapets, some set off fireworks, and paper sky lanterns drift upwards.
- No lanterns from us: a falling flame on a city of dry roofs and stored kites is a real fire risk.
- Dinner on the roof: instead we end with dinner, a shawl and the city glittering below.
The language of the roof
Patang: the kite itself, usually a diamond of thin tissue paper on a frame of two split bamboo sticks, one straight spine and one curved bow.
Manjha: the fighting string, coated so it can cut another kite's line. Traditionally cotton rubbed with rice, glue and powdered glass. Today we use plain or lightly coated cotton, for reasons explained below.
- Charkhi: the wooden spool, and its holder matters as much as the flier. In most families this job goes to a younger brother or a patient uncle.
- Kanna: the bridle, the knotted string joining line to kite. A badly tied kanna makes a kite spin and dive however well you fly, and tying it is the first thing our kite-makers teach.
- Pech: the duel, the moment two strings cross. Some fliers pull fast and hard, called khainch. Others let out string quickly to saw through the rival line, called dheel.
- Woh kata: or kaate, the cry when you cut someone's kite loose. Shout it loudly. The losing roof usually answers with laughter and a fresh launch within the minute.
Where we arrange your kite day
- Our favourite
- A family rooftop in the walled city
- Stay inside the walls
- Samode Haveli, booked months ahead
- View from above
- Nahargarh ramparts, afternoon
- Quieter
- Samode palace terraces
- Other kite days
- Akha Teej in Bikaner, Uttarayan in Ahmedabad
A family rooftop in the walled city
How we spend it ourselves: with a Jaipur family we know well, on a sturdy roof with a proper parapet, in the old lanes between Johari Bazaar and Chandpole.
- The day: arrive mid-morning, meet the family, learn to launch a kite, eat what they cook and fly until dusk.
- Fair and honest: the family is paid properly, and there is no shop at the bottom of the stairs.
A haveli hotel inside the walls
Stay where you fly: Samode Haveli puts you inside the walled city, to step into the lanes in the morning and climb back to a quiet terrace in the afternoon.
- Book early: haveli hotels like this fill early for mid-January, so we book months ahead.
- From outside the walls: from the garden palaces, such as Rambagh Palace, we drive you into the old city in the morning and collect you after dusk.
Nahargarh and Amer, the view from above
- For photographers: an hour on the ramparts of Nahargarh Fort in the afternoon shows the whole kite-filled sky over Jaipur.
- Amer: in Amer, the old capital below Amber Fort, children fly kites from flat roofs under some of the grandest walls in India, and the day feels like a village festival.
Samode, a village kite day
Quieter: an hour north of Jaipur, Samode celebrates gently.
- On the terraces: kites from the palace terraces with village roofs around you and the Aravalli hills behind.
- Who for: families with small children, or anyone who finds the city's noise too much.
Bikaner on Akha Teej
Its own kite day: on Akha Teej, in April or May, Bikaner celebrates the day Rao Bika is said to have founded it in 1488.
- The food: the whole town flies kites and eats bajre ka khichda, a pearl millet dish, with tangy tamarind water.
- Late afternoon: it is hot, so the kites go up late. Our things to do in Bikaner guide has more.
Ahmedabad on Uttarayan, and Delhi on 15 August
Uttarayan: Gujarat's name for the same January festival. The old pols of Ahmedabad are so packed you can almost walk roof to roof, and the city holds an international kite festival.
- Old Delhi: on Independence Day, 15 August, the roofs around Chandni Chowk fill with families flying kites.
- If you can only do one: we would choose Jaipur in January.
Learning to fly a fighter kite
Not a beach kite: a Jaipur patang is light, square-ish and deliberately unstable, so that it can be steered.
How it moves: a short tug and it darts in the direction it is facing. Let the line go slack and it spins and drifts.
The rhythm: flying well is tugs and pauses, and fighting is a game of nerve.
- The lesson: on kite day or the day before, from a kite-maker or a seasoned family flier.
- Check the kite: the bow evenly curved, the paper tight, the kanna tied so the kite sits at the right angle to the string.
- The launch: on a breezy day, hold it up and let the wind take it. On a still day a helper walks it across the roof, and on a signal you pull hand over hand until it catches the air above the water tanks.
- Steering: short tugs make it climb or dart, and a pause lets it turn.
- Progress: within half an hour most people hold a kite steady, and within a morning many can bring it down on purpose.
- Duelling: watch a few fights first, then fly beside a family member who manages the string while you feel the contact, and only then try a pech of your own.
- Children: from about six or seven, with an adult holding the spool. Younger ones are just as happy chasing loose kites, eating sweets and shouting woh kata.
The kite makers and the kite bazaar
Haldiyon ka Rasta: the best-known kite lane, hung floor to ceiling with paper diamonds in every colour, plain and printed, tiny for children and big for serious fliers.
On the pavement: spools of string stacked beside the stalls, and men tying kannas for customers who don't trust themselves.
- Kite lane
- Haldiyon ka Rasta, off Johari Bazaar
- When
- The two weeks before Sankranti
- Workshop visit
- The week before the festival
- Test a kite
- Balance it on one finger
- Out of season
- Smaller numbers through the winter
- A family craft: many Jaipur makers belong to old Muslim families of the walled city who have made kites for generations, alongside their other trades.
- How a kite is made: bamboo split into thin strips, spine and bow shaved by eye, paper pasted over the frame and trimmed with a blade, edges reinforced with thread.
- Speed and balance: a practised hand makes many kites a day, and the difference between good and bad is the balance.
- Make your own: in the week before Sankranti, when the whole household is at work, you can make a kite in a workshop to fly on the day. Children love it.
- Buy from the maker: the makers are paid for their time, and you buy directly rather than from a showroom.
- To take home: a bundle of Jaipur kites, packed flat, is a lovely thing. Our shopping guide to Rajasthan and our journal on kite day in Jaipur say more.
What we eat between kites
Sesame and jaggery: warming foods for the cold season, with a meaning: sesame for purity and giving, jaggery for sweetness between people.
Til laddoo: round sesame balls bound with jaggery, stacked on trays in the sweet shops the week before.
Til patti and gajak: a thin sesame brittle, and a flaky sesame and jaggery sweet that shatters when you bite it. Families take boxes up to the roof and press them on every visitor.
- Feeni: a nest of fine, crisp threads of fried dough, crumbled into hot sweetened milk for breakfast. A winter sweet across Rajasthan, bought specially for Sankranti.
- Gond ke laddoo: made with edible gum, ghee and nuts, thought to keep you warm on a cold morning.
- Savouries all afternoon: hot pakodi of onion, spinach or chilli, and dal pakodi of soaked and ground lentils.
- Khichdi: in many homes a simple khichdi of rice and lentils, eaten on Sankranti across north India.
- Chai: masala chai is constant.
- Who cooks: host families cook for you, and on hotel rooftops we arrange a lunch in the same spirit, eaten standing with one eye on the sky. Our food of Jaipur guide tells the stories.
Birds, string and a kinder sky
Glass manjha: the old glass-coated string was sharp enough to cut fingers.
Chinese manjha: synthetic and nylon strings made things much worse. They don't break or rot, and hanging from trees and wires they trap birds for weeks.
Danger on the roads: they have also caused serious injuries to people on scooters and motorcycles.
- Banned: India's courts and the Rajasthan authorities have acted against these strings, and the synthetic kind is banned. The city also issues its own orders each festival, and we follow them.
- Rescue camps: volunteers from Jaipur's animal and bird rescue groups set up treatment camps and ask everyone to fly only in the middle of the day, when birds are settled.
- Our rules: cotton string on every roof, a clear sky in the early morning and the hour before dusk, and loose string gathered from our roof and parapets at the end of the day.
- Neighbours: people will wave you over, offer a sweet and want to see what the foreigner on the next roof can do. That is the joy of it.
- Courtesy: ask before you photograph the family on the next roof, and remember the lanes below are someone's home.
- Our wider approach: see ethical animal encounters and travelling responsibly.
Planning a January in Jaipur around the kites
Perfect rooftop weather: as long as you bring layers.
Later in the month: the Jaipur Literature Festival usually follows, the winter polo season is under way and the mustard fields outside the city are in flower.
- Days
- Bright and cool, often low twenties
- Nights
- Cold, sometimes near freezing before dawn
- Book
- Rooftop hotels several months ahead
- Also in January
- Literature Festival, polo, mustard in flower
- Day after
- Keep it quiet
- Combine it: many guests pair the kites with a slow week in Jaipur and Amer, or the start of a longer journey.
- On the 14th: the roads in and around the walled city become festival ground, so we plan for you to be in the old city rather than driving through it.
- Journeys that flex: our Winter in Rajasthan journey and Jaipur in three nights both include kite day, and our guide to Rajasthan in January covers the month.
Before you go up
Layers and sunscreen: a warm layer for morning and evening, sunglasses for the midday glare and sunscreen. Rooftops have no shade.
Good shoes: soft and flat with a good grip. Old roofs have uneven steps, low parapets and the odd hidden pipe.
- Children near edges: our host roofs have proper walls, but excitement makes everyone forget where the edge is.
- Expect noise: music, fireworks and shouting all day. If you need a quiet hour, we arrange a calm room downstairs.
- Small notes: for kite sellers and for tipping the children who return your cut kites.
- Don't drive: the lanes become a playground, and loose string across the roads is a real hazard.
Who will love a kite day, and who may not
People lovers: you will love it if you enjoy being among people rather than looking at them.
Families: children of almost any age have the best time, because children are the heart of the festival, and Jaipur children adopt visiting ones within minutes.
- Photographers: the light and the colour.
- The curious: more of how the old city really lives in a day than in a week of monuments.
- Couples: on a winter journey, they tell us it is the day they talk about most.
- It may not suit: anyone uneasy with crowds, loud music and fireworks, or who has difficulty with steep stairs.
- The calmer version: an hour on the Nahargarh ramparts in the afternoon, then a terrace at Samode or a palace garden for the evening lamps. Ask us, and we build the day around you.