Authors: Ben Ruhe
Date Submitted: February 28, 2003
Article Type: Journal

Hundreds of children, some of them homeless street children, flew kites in a Mumbai (Bombay) park recently as a gesture toward peace, harmony, and religious tolerance in India. The street children had made and adorned their own kites at a workshop conducted by Babu Khan of Rajasthan, a noted kitemaker who has made “lakhs”—-hundreds of thousands—-of kites in his lifetime.

Ajay Prakash, who organizes the annual Rajasthan kite festival which over the years has introduced many dozens of Westerners both to the challenges of Indian kite fighting and the immense charms of the host country, organized the fly as a function of the Nomad Heritage Trust. Prakash runs Nomad Travel, of Bombay, sponsor of the foundation. As he phrases it, “In the sky there are no borders to divide people. It is a free place where people can let their souls soar with their kites.”

Flying her little paper dream was Ashwini Pardesi, 14, who added a message to the sail: “Hamein shanty se rehana chahiye…jhagda nahin karna chahiye”—-“We should live in peace. Not fight.” This was a response to religious rioting earlier elsewhere in the country. Babu Khan explained his own long trip from Jaipur to Bombay with the words: “Shanti aur ekta banae rahni chahiye”—-“Peace should prevail, hence we have come.”

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