The one day Jaipur looks up
On every other day of the year Jaipur looks down at its bazaars. On Sankranti nobody looks at the street at all.
A solar festival: Sankranti is the sun's passage into a new sign of the zodiac, and Makar is Capricorn. Because it follows the sun, it lands on almost the same date every year, which is rare in our calendar.
Two days of kites: in years when almanacs move the main observance to the 15th, Jaipur simply flies on both. Families call the second day basi, stale, Sankranti, and it is nearly as loud.
Facts to know
- Date
- Usually 14 January, sometimes the 15th
- Why it's fixed
- It follows the sun, not the moon
- Flying hours
- Sunrise to dusk, busiest late morning
- Second day
- Basi Sankranti, almost as busy
- Season builds
- From late December
- A city made for it: the walled city was laid out in the 1720s on a grid of flat roofs and terraces. Each roof is a launch pad, and neighbours are close enough to duel.
- Everyone flies: grandfathers, schoolgirls, shopkeepers, priests. It is one of the few days when the old city's caste and class lines blur on the roofs.
- The bazaars go quiet: shutters stay down in much of the old city, because the shopkeepers are upstairs with everybody else.
- It is not only fun: for devout families the day begins with a bath, prayers to the sun and gifts to the poor. Our Makar Sankranti festival guide tells that side of the story.
Local tip
We confirm the date every year in October. If the almanacs split between the 14th and 15th, plan to be in Jaipur for both days.
The fortnight before, when the sky fills slowly
Kite day doesn't arrive in a morning. It creeps in from Christmas onwards, one schoolboy and one kite at a time.
The first kites: from late December children fly after school, and each afternoon there are a few more paper diamonds over the walled city.
The kite lanes: kite sellers gather around Haldiyon ka Rasta and set up pop-up stalls across the old city, with kites stacked in bright towers and spools hanging in rows.
- Go in the evening: families shop after work, and the stalls are at their liveliest. Walk with your guide and choose your own kites. Our guide to the bazaars of Jaipur has the lanes.
- Buy by the dozen: locals buy kites in bundles, because many will be lost. A beginner can easily lose ten before lunch.
- Spools and string: good shops sell cotton manjha by the spool, ready coated. Ask for cotton and refuse anything synthetic.
- The weather: clear, crisp and dry. Mornings start cold, near 8°C, and middays are warm in the sun. Our page on Rajasthan in January explains the month.
- The practice roofs: if you stay inside the walls in early January, you will hear the shouts of practice duels from your terrace every afternoon.
Local tip
Buy your kites two or three days before Sankranti. On the eve itself the lanes are packed and the best spools are gone.
What you fly with, piece by piece
A Jaipur kite is light, tailless and deliberately unstable. It is built to be steered into a fight, not to hang politely in the air.
The patang
What it is: a diamond of thin tissue paper on a frame of split bamboo, one straight spine and one curved bow.
- No tail: without a tail it darts and dives, which is exactly what a fighter wants.
- Sizes and prints: from small children's kites to large ones for strong winds, plain or printed with cricketers, gods and film stars.
The manjha
Fighting string: cotton thread coated with glue and finely ground glass, so it can saw through another kite's line.
- The old way: families once stretched the thread between trees in the lanes and coated it by hand. A few still do.
- What is banned: synthetic and so-called Chinese manjha, which doesn't break and has injured people and birds. We use cotton only.
The charkhi
The spool: a wooden reel with two handles, held by a partner while you fly.
- The partner's job: let out string fast in a duel, wind it in when the fight is won, and never let it tangle.
- A family role: in many houses the youngest child holds the charkhi for years before being trusted with the kite.
The kanna
- The bridle: two short lengths of thread tied to the spine and bow, which set the angle the kite flies at.
- Why it matters: a badly tied kanna and the kite spins or sulks. Ask a local to tie it, and watch how.
The finger guard
- Protect your hand: even cotton manjha cuts skin when a duel runs fast. Tape or a cloth guard on the index finger is normal.
- We bring them: our roofs come stocked with guards, tape and a small first-aid kit.
Words you'll hear on the roof
By noon you will be shouting in Hindi and Rajasthani without meaning to. These are the words that matter.
Patang: the kite itself. Patangbaazi is the art, or the obsession, of flying them.
Pech: the duel, when two lines cross and each flier tries to cut the other.
- Dheel: letting string out fast, so your line slides across the other and saws it.
- Kheench: pulling the string in sharply. Some roofs swear by dheel, others by kheench. Arguments last for decades.
- Woh kata: there it goes, the shout when a kite is cut and drifts away. The whole roof joins in, and the next roof replies.
- Woh maara: got it, another victory cry. You will hear both hundreds of times.
- Loot: chasing and catching a cut kite as it falls. A caught kite belongs to the catcher, by the oldest law of the lanes.
- Khamma ghani: the Rajasthani greeting. Say it to the next roof and you have made friends for the day.
Local tip
Learn to shout woh kata with a grin when your own kite is cut. Losing gracefully earns more respect than winning.
Your first launch, step by step
Launching a patang looks effortless when a ten-year-old does it. It takes most grown-ups about twenty minutes and a little humility.
Step one: read the wind
- Feel it first: stand at the roof edge, behind the parapet, and feel which way the breeze comes. Wind at your back is what you want.
- Late morning is best: the wind usually rises towards noon. Early mornings are often too still for beginners.
Step two: the throw
- A partner helps: someone holds the kite a few metres away, nose up, and lets go as you give a short tug.
- Small tugs: quick pulls make the kite climb. Long pulls make it dive.
Step three: steady the climb
- Let out string slowly: feed line from the charkhi as the kite rises, with gentle tugs to keep it climbing.
- If it spins: pull it in, check the kanna and try again. Every family has a cousin who fixes kites without looking.
Step four: steer
- The trick: a tailless kite turns when its line goes slack. Relax the string, and when the nose points where you want, tug to send it that way.
- Practise alone first: fly clear of other lines until you can turn left and right on purpose.
Step five: your first pech
- Let it happen: a neighbour will find your kite soon enough. Hold your nerve, let out string and let the cousin beside you call the moves.
- Win or lose, shout: the noise is half the duel. Our kite flying experience teaches the same steps on calmer days.
How our family spends the day, hour by hour
Our kite day has hardly changed in three generations. Only the speakers got louder.
Dawn: the bath and the giving
- Water first: the devout bathe early, some in the sacred tanks of Galtaji in the hills east of the city.
- Daan, giving: sesame, jaggery, grain and blankets go to those who ask, and cows at the temple gates are fed green fodder.
Eight o'clock: up to the roof
- Setting up: kites stacked in a corner, spools checked, a flask of ginger chai and a steel plate of til sweets.
- The music starts: every roof has a speaker, and every speaker plays something different.
Late morning: the battles
- The wind rises: the real duels begin, and the sky becomes so crowded that lines cross every few seconds.
- Boys in the lanes: cut kites drift down and children race through the alleys with long poles and thorny branches to catch them.
Lunch: nobody goes downstairs
- Food comes up: dal ki pakodi, lentil fritters, with green chutney, hot gajak and more chai, eaten between duels.
Afternoon: the long gold light
- Best photographs: the low sun turns the walled city pink and gold and the kites to silhouettes. Our photography tips cover shooting into the sun.
Dusk and night: lanterns and fireworks
The sky changes: as the wind drops, kites come down, and paper lanterns and fireworks rise over the roofs.
- The rules change too: lantern and firework rules vary year to year because of fire risk, and we follow them.
- Dinner on the roof: shawls on, plates of hot food, and stories of every kite cut that day.
Where to be on the day
The kites fly over the whole of Jaipur. The fun lives inside the walls, where the roofs touch.
A family roof inside the walls: the best place by far. Neighbours on every side, duels coming to you, and a family to teach you. This is what we arrange.
A heritage terrace: a haveli hotel roof in the old city gives you the noise with a clean washroom and lunch downstairs.
- Near Hawa Mahal: the roofs around Hawa Mahal and Badi Chaupar give you kites against the pink facade. They are among the busiest in the city.
- Nahargarh at sunset: from the ramparts of Nahargarh Fort you see kites rising off the whole grid, then the first lanterns. Busy on the day, but worth it.
- Not on the roads: kite strings stretch across the lanes and catch riders and drivers. Our chauffeurs drop you outside the walls and our guide walks you in.
- From a palace garden: if you prefer calm, the lawns of Rambagh Palace give you a sky full of kites without the crowd.
Local tip
Ask for a roof one or two storeys higher than its neighbours. Your kite climbs clear of the tangle, and you see the whole battle.
What we eat on the roof
In January every sweet shop in the old city smells of toasted sesame and melting jaggery. That smell is Sankranti.
Til patti: a thin, crackling brittle of sesame and sugar or jaggery. Snap it, share it, offer it to the next roof.
Til laddoo: round balls of toasted sesame bound with jaggery. Grandmothers make them by the hundred.
Facts to know
- The taste
- Til, sesame, with gur, jaggery
- Why sesame
- Said to warm the body in winter
- Savoury
- Dal ki pakodi, kachori
- Winter special
- Feeni, fine threads in warm milk
- At home
- Khichdi, shared with the poor
- Gajak: sesame and jaggery beaten until flaky and light. Eat it warm if you can.
- Dal ki pakodi: crisp fritters of ground lentils, fried in batches downstairs and sent up hot with green chutney.
- Feeni: a nest of fine fried threads, soaked in warm milk. It belongs to the cold weeks and disappears by spring.
- Khichdi: rice and lentils cooked in many homes on the day, and rice, lentils and sesame are given away.
- Where to taste more: our food of Jaipur guide lists the old sweet shops we trust.
Kind kite flying, for people and for birds
Every Sankranti, vets and volunteers set up camps across Jaipur for birds caught in kite string. We would like them to have fewer patients.
Cotton only: synthetic and nylon manjha doesn't snap. It hangs in trees and across roads for weeks, and it is banned. We refuse it on our roofs.
Fly in the middle of the day: birds are most active at dawn and dusk. We bring kites down early in the evening and start after the first light.
- Injured bird? tell your guide. Rescue camps are set up across the city on the festival days, and our team knows the nearest one.
- Mind the edge: choose roofs with proper parapets, and keep children well back. Nobody chases a kite across roofs on our watch.
- Mind your hands: wear a finger guard or tape, and don't grab a running line with a bare hand.
- Mind your eyes: sunglasses and a hat matter. You spend hours looking into the winter sun.
- Mind the roads: avoid riding or walking fast through the lanes, where loose strings hang at neck height.
Local tip
Before you leave the roof, wind in every loose length of string and take it down with you. Stray string is what hurts the birds.
Roof manners, so every neighbour likes you
Sankranti is the friendliest day of the Jaipur year. A few small customs make you the guest every roof wants.
Join in: if a neighbour's line crosses yours, the duel has started, and everyone expects you to try.
Never ask for your kite back: a kite that lands on another roof belongs to whoever catches it.
- Share your sweets: til is passed between roofs all day. Accept what you're offered and offer back.
- Shoes off indoors: you'll often climb through a family home to reach the roof. Shoes come off at the door.
- Ask before photographing: families are relaxed on the day, but a smile and a gesture first is always right.
- Give on the way: people ask for alms on Sankranti, the day of giving. A small note is right.
- Stay till dusk: leaving at noon is like walking out of a wedding before dinner.
How we plan your kite day
The luxury on Sankranti is simple: a good roof, a cousin to teach you, and a quiet room to come back to.
The roof: a private haveli roof inside the walls, with a family we know, kites, cotton string, finger guards, lunch and chai.
The day before: the kite market and the bazaars, with your own kites chosen and kannas tied.
Facts to know
- Book
- Several months ahead, it's peak season
- Nights
- Three in Jaipur, one either side
- Stay
- Inside or near the walled city
- Pack
- Warm layer, hat, sunglasses, sunscreen
- Avoid
- Sightseeing by car on the day
- The day after: something quiet, such as Amber at opening time or a long lunch out of town.
- Where to stay: Samode Haveli, a nobleman's townhouse inside the walled city, lets you walk to the roofs. Rambagh Palace and the city's other garden palaces give calm after the noise.
- January is crowded: the wedding season and the Jaipur Literature Festival, held in January, fill the best rooms, so we book early.
- A ready-made shape: our Jaipur in three nights journey bends easily around kite day.
Local tip
Leave Jaipur the day after Sankranti, not the same evening. The roads out of the city are slow and strung with loose line on the night itself.
Kites at other times and in other cities
If January doesn't suit, the sky over Rajasthan has other kite days, and the roofs are always there.
Bikaner flies in spring: Bikaner keeps its own kite day on Akha Teej, linked to the founding of the city, rather than on Sankranti.
Ahmedabad's Uttarayan: across the border in Gujarat, Ahmedabad keeps Sankranti as Uttarayan, with a kite day just as fierce. Some guests try both cities in one January.
- Any winter afternoon: we arrange kite flying on a haveli roof at other times in the cool season, gentler and with the sky to yourself.
- The Bikaner Camel Festival: also held in January, it pairs well with the kites for a winter in Rajasthan journey.
- Gangaur and Teej: if you love Jaipur's festivals, come back in spring or the monsoon for the processions out of the City Palace. Our Teej in Jaipur post explains the rainy-season one.
Who will love kite day, and who won't
Sankranti is loud, sociable and wonderfully silly. Most of our guests count it among their best days in India. Not everyone does.
You'll love it if: you like joining in rather than watching, you enjoy music and noise, and a day on a roof with tea and sweets sounds like a holiday.
Families: children pick it up faster than adults, and the kite chases in the lanes, watched from above, delight them.
- Photographers: the light, the colour and the faces on the roofs are extraordinary. Bring a long lens for the duels.
- Think twice if: you want monuments at their quietest, or loud music all day would wear you down. The old city's roads are best avoided.
- The calm alternative: spend Sankranti at a country palace such as Samode Palace, where the village flies its own kites, and see Jaipur on the days around it.
- First visit to Jaipur? read a Jaipur morning and our Jaipur guide to fit the rest of the city around the kites.