Fly your kite and see your prayers answered

Fly your kite and see your prayers answered

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): People play all kinds of games all the time,
from boxing each other to kicking ball, but what makes Peggy
happiest is pulling strings.

Although associated predominantly with the whimsical world of
men who refuse to let go of the little boy in them and love the
kite simply because it is able to repeatedly arouse the charms of
childhood in them, Peggy is one woman who is as equally taken
with kites.

"Though I am more attracted to the sculptural quality of kites
now, and the engineering that goes into them, I still feel a
flutter of joy whenever I see a kite ... I guess I am one of
those who wants to keep the little girl in me alive," she
confides to The Jakarta Post.

Peggy, an expatriate, shared her passion with an enchanted
audience at the city's Erasmus Huis recently. She has loved kites
for as long as she can remember. As a design student at
university, she participated in a competition for the design,
building and flying of kites and won a prize. As an art teacher
she had students design and fly kites for part of their unit on
sculpture.

But to be involved in the activity here, in the East where
kiting itself is thought to have began more than 2,000 ago, is a
most thrilling experience for her.

However, confusion over who first invented the kite continues
unabated to this day as some feel that it was between 400 and 300
BC that Archytas first used a kite in the Greek city of Tarentum.
The Chinese claim that a Gen. Han-Sin discovered its use in 206
BC for warfare. And the discovery of an ancient cave drawing of a
flying man in Southest Sulawesi's Muna regency leads others to
believe that kites may even have originated here in Indonesia.

According to yet another myth, the ancient sport dates back to
a time when human beings still floated about as mere specks in
the wind. Once dropped down to earth, they kept in touch with
their ethereal home through the soaring spirit of a kite.

Personally, Peggy prefers the story that says to fly a kite is
to be able to put your very heart on a string in order to kiss
God.

While the kite has been put to some very practical uses in the
West from recording temperatures, aerial photography to testing
theories for the first flying machine that soon after gave birth
to the airplane, both kite making and flying have remained
primarily a magical and mystical activity in the East.

A ninth century Buddhist monk once burst into this poetry: My
kite rises to celestial regions/ My soul enters the abode of
bliss.

Some scholars insist that the kite originated as a symbol for
the soul of man. When oriental seamen saw the sail of a boat
suddenly blown off in a high wind, they immediately connected
this with the life and death of man. They saw how the boat or
body depended upon the very slender thread connecting it to the
sail or soul.

Some of the most beautiful kites today are made in Bali in
praise of the creator. They are thrown toward the sky to please
the gods in their heavenly abode. Word has spread around the
world about the spectacular process the Balinese banjar
(neighborhood) employ in creating kites in mainly three different
styles of the fish, dragon and the eye, and visitors pour onto
the island soon after the end of the rainy season to witness the
colorful creatures being made and launched toward heaven.

Some of the gigantic ones are as long as 300 feet and it takes
a score of people to carry one in a festive procession through a
village. This year the skies above Bali are expected to be
canopied once again with 1,000 kites and more between July 14 and
July 16.

While farmers all over Indonesia have been using them around
their fields for centuries to keep birds away, the Balinese also
like to fly humming kites over the bridal chamber of newlyweds in
the hope of everlasting marital bliss.

In South Sumatra men in little boats let kites catch fish
while in West Java kites are meant to trap large fruit-eating
bats that exit their caves every evening near sunset.

It was the gigantic kites with their intricate patterns and
bright colors that first drew the attention of Peggy at one of
the international bazaars held here regularly to collect money
for charity. She liked one shaped like a golden dragon in
particular and wanted to have it mainly for decorative purposes.

Her inquiries led her to Ibu Sari Madjid, the owner of Le
Gong, the most fascinating kite shop in town, and the Indonesian
Kite Association (Pelangi). Pelangi was formed in 1996 and helped
Indonesia gain recognition and respect as the home of some of the
best kites in the world.

The country also participates in international kite festivals
where it has bagged prizes in kite fighting, height and length of time
of flight and for the technical skill of the players.

While most entries from western countries are made from modern
materials like strongly woven rip-stop nylon and carbon fiber
graphite rods and other high-tech, space-age geegaws, many
Indonesian kites are still made out of traditional materials like
leaves.

The kaghati kite from Muna regency in Southeast Sulawesi is in
fact a collector's dream and is desired by museums across the
globe. After all, it is a direct descendant of leaves that have
been spiraling to the ground since time undated by human memory
and of birds that rode the currents of air before the eyes of
primitive man.

Made from a single leaf of the wild cassava or from a dried
leaf of the fern, the diamond shaped kaghati is rumored to be the
only one of its kind that is able to communicate best with the
gods. So if you have a prayer pending and still want it answered,
all you have to do is join the annual kite carnival at the
National Monument (Monas) Park, to be held in Jakarta this year
through July 7 and July 9.