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.