04/02/2014- A day to remember forever for its uniqueness and its colorness. I never celebrated this festival before. And i wonder why? It is such a beautiful and joyful festival spreading happiness all over. This time i got a chance to this festival first time in my life time. And what a day it was!! Full of colorful kites, threads and delicious food etc.
These days i have made another friend named Pankaj. I met him through Vimal (one of the contractors). We both get along really well being singles. We hardly know each other for a month but it seems like we are kind of good friends. We hang around together, shares wass app messages etc. He told me about his craziness for the festival two days before and we planned to celebrate it together. Being a studious guy in my childhood, i never got a opportunity to showcase my skills in kite flying. Or rather i was never interested in kite flying as it used to depress me as i always failed to make a kite fly up in the sky. It required a special kind of skill which i lacked in.
Having set the background let's delve into realm of fun that i had. On 3rd night of feb 2014, we both went shopping for the kites, heart shaped parashutes, threads, tapes etc. He took me to the streets of kill area which are famous for its craziness for the festival. We bargained around 50 kites along with 6000 meters of strings to fly them. We had dinner then and went to respective homes. Next day it was a govt holiday. Since he is a contractor, it was working day for me but he took off. He called me up in the morning and made the program. He went to his old house in mehna chowk to celebrate the basant with his old friends. then he came to pick me up to his under construction house just a street far from my PG.
We were joined by vimal also being a common friend. We three went upstairs and started preparing ourselves for the celebrations. it was 12 o clock already and people were already celebrating on their roofs with DJ and music systems. Since the house was under construction, we had no music but we managed it with surrounding music. We started flying off with our first kite i held the "charkhri". Pankaj and vimal were so excited as they knew how to fly the kite and then further how to cut the competitor's one. I was enjoying in helping them out, cheering them up. Then they gave the command of a kite which was already flying high. I must say i managed to keep it high until and unless some other kite came my way to cut it off. I was happy that i made a cross connection with some other kite whatever the results were.
From that time onwards i started feeling joy from inside. I gave it a try to some other kites and learned how to fly the same. It was not so hard to actually learning the skill. It was already 3 o clock. In the mean while, vimal got a call from his home. We all decided to go to his home to continue our celebrations. While getting down from the temporary staircase pankaj slipped and got hurt. His ankle got twisted but his spirit not to give up kept us going. We went to vimal's house and straight away went onto the top of roof. There we ordered Pizza, sandwichs, pepsi etc to feed our stomachs. I got to meet his family which were very nice to me. Then we flied some more kites, also caught some.
It was 4 o clock and Vimal got a call from his site and needed his help immediately. We went to site to clear the issue. I asked them to leave me at my room as i was really tired by then and wanted to have some break. I told them to meet up after 2 hours or so. I came back and had a nap. Around 6 o clock, both came in to my apartment and we again started the mission kite. Sun was Setting slowly so we thought to wind up with the kites. We had some parashutes which were then lightened up and left in the sky. What a sight to watch!! As already described, people in bathinda has a special space for basant in their hearts. So there were hundreds of other parashutes in the sky. Whole sky got lightened up as they were looking like twinkling stars. Other guys from PG also joined us. We all sang, danced together and winded up.
As it was a tuesday hence we three went to Bala Ji Mandir for paying our prayers at Goniana like every tuesday. Since it was a festival day , so we were lucky to have a langar at the temple only. The day ended with a fun time ice cream in Dhobi Bajaar. I would always remember this day and will certainly celebrate basant panchami next time also and for the many years to come.
Regards
Parul Goyal
