Kite Flying/Fighting in Sri Lanka
I was talking to a high school teacher of mine about the book “Kite runner” by Khaleed Hosseni. I was trying to explain how the book reached me on a personal level, me having been an avid kite flier in my teens in my hometown of Colombo, Sri Lanka. It dawned on me that given the friends and colleagues I move with, I might be somewhat of a rarity.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew some friends who might have joined in to fly a kite…and some did on occasion. But I can’t think of anyone who would race home after school in the blistering heat of July (the peak of kite season) and stare up at a kite in the sky for 3 to 4 hours. Every day in July…every year…for more than 10 years. I can’t think of anyone I know who did that, except me. I was that person.
So let me give you a brief introduction to kite flying/fighting in Colombo.
Kite Season in Sri Lanka
The kite season in Sri Lanka usually starts with the dawn of the sunny season in July and runs through to early September where it is broken by the rains. Colorful kites are a common sight in the sky. The heaviest density of kites (at any given point of time) is usually found at the Galle Face Green, an urban park in central Colombo situated right next to the ocean. The constant high winds at Galle Face make for a great place to fly/sell kites, attracting anyone and everyone who wants to fly a kite for a day. However, it is the kite-flying that happens on the by-roads and gardens across the city that interested mini-me. Here, amidst the dense population of trees, buildings, TV antennae and electric poles, you require quite a bit of skill just to get your kite into the air. Tossing string over electric wires and holding kites atop roof tops while your comrade waits for a favorable wind is a common sight. The flying here is a different game, and the fighting that comes along with it is much more fun.
Kite Varieties
Sri Lankan kites come in several shapes. Each shape can come in any size, from the smallest being approximately half a foot to giant kites which can be 15 feet or more. Note that this is the most common distribution of sizes; there can be much larger (or possibly smaller) ones created for special events.
The most popular shapes are roughly described as follows:
Kombuwa: Shaped like a diamond, typically with bunches of frills on either wingtip (and sometimes down the side). The top can sometimes be extended, sort of like a bowstrip at the tip of which is connected a long bunch of frills spanning the height of the entire kite.
Monara (“Peacock”): A diamond shaped (similar to the kombuwa) main body with an extended curved tail. Frills (usually multi colored and roughly 3/4ths the length of the body) are connected along the curved edge of the tail thus making it similar to the iconic tail feathers of the male peacock.
Maaluwa (“Fish”): A diamond shaped (similar to the kombuwa) main body with an extended tail in the shape of two symmetric fins, like the tail of a fish. Bunches of frills (usually approximately 3/4ths the length of the body) are connected to each fin-tip.
Ibba (“Tortoise”): Starting from the top that looks somewhat similar to the kombuwa, this does not close at the bottom into a diamond shape. Instead it has an almost horizontal bar across its bottom the tips of which are connected to its wing-tips, resulting in a roughly pentagonal shape. Bunches of frills are usually connected to each of the four tips and a long bunch is connected to the bowstrip, usually spanning the length of the kite.
Vavula (“Bat”): If you take the kombuwa, remove the bowstrip and squeeze its height to roughly 3/4ths its width (give or take), you would end up with a Vavula. Usually long bunches of frills are connected to its wing-tips.
Naya (“Snake”): One of the most iconic kites, this consists of a head, the shape of which is similar to an Ibba kite with its bowstrip removed. A long tail is connected to the bottom bar. Naya kites can vary much in size but the longest can be sometimes 30–40 m, so that when up in the air the changes in the position of the tail can take a couple of seconds to propagate down, even with the full force of the wind.
Some other interesting yet uncommon shapes:
- Pettiya (“Box”)
- Kakka (“Crow”) (popular at Galle Face, Colombo, but not outside)
Note: This is not an exhaustive list and may change based on your geographic location.
Maattu (Kite-fighting)
You could be in your garden (or on the road) flying your kite while someone in your neighborhood can be flying their kite as well. If the locations are close enough, this gives you the unique opportunity to have a kite fight. There’s some interesting physics behind the whole “battle”. In order to stay up in the air, the kite depends on some simple aerodynamics. The steady flow of air (once your kite gets to about 60 feet) attempts to push the kite along with it. The string anchored to the flier, holds the kite against this flow. This could, of course, lead to the kite going in one of many directions. However, the combination of the forces on the bridle (the V shaped string that attaches to the kite) and the curvature of the kite itself results in a resultant force that pushes the kite upwards (in the direction of its bowstrip) until that force is limited by the angle of the kite to the wind. For example, as it rises to an angle of 90 degrees to the ground, the upward force on the kite drops to zero which results in the kite being pushed along back to a position of stability by the wind.
For more information see this NASA article on the trigonometry of kite bridles: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/kitebrid.html
Now if the kite is given a sudden perturbation which causes a change in the direction of its bowstrip, it will tend to move in that direction until it rights itself again (or crashes to the ground). This can be used by a skillful flier to fly the kite in a loop. Now if said loop, can be done in the vicinity of another kite, the strings anchoring the two kites will obviously get entangled. If the strings are not taut, this would result in an entanglement and nothing more. In this configuration, if handled skillfully, the flier can use their kite to pull down the other kite (and that’s how you steal a kite! Make sure you change its colors before trying to fly it yourself). However, on a windy day when tensions in the strings are high, if one string zips across the other the latter will be cut (this can easily happen to a kite flier’s hand as well). These are the two outcomes sought after in a kite fight.
Now there are several positional strategies that are key to a kite fight. For the sake of keeping up the “battle” analogy, let’s call your fellow kite flier the “enemy”.
- Your enemy is downwind from you — You are at a disadvantage. You have the ability to cut your enemy’s kite, if the winds favor you. But due to the fact that your kite is further away from you than from your enemy, you will most likely not be able to pull down your enemies kite before he does (see Figure 1). And entanglement might result in your enemy stealing your kite.
- Your enemy is upwind from you — You are at an advantage for exactly the same reasons above. If you have the skills, you are in a great position to either cut your enemy’s line, or steal his kite.
- Your enemy is to one side of you (perpendicular to the direction of the wind) — Neither you, nor your enemy has a real advantage. It’s going to be a fair fight.
Gal (“Stone”) Maattu
One might think that if one had enough string and a small kite, they could indefinitely send their kite up as high as they want. Not necessarily. The main problem is that the more string released, the more weight the kite has to carry as it stays “up”. The larger the kite, the greater the weight it can carry and thus the higher it can go. However, the larger the kite, the thicker the string needs to be to prevent it from snapping under the tension. So there’s a trade-off here between kite-size and string thickness that prevents infinite heights.
With any usual combination, it comes to a point where given enough length, the string will be so heavy that it will droop down in a massive arc. While the greatest risk in this configuration is that of the string getting entangled in a tree (or more likely a TV antenna if you live within a city space), there is also the threat of a “Gal Maattuwa”.
If we step back into our battle terminology for a moment, the prime positioning for a gal mattuwa would be when your unassuming enemy is flying his kite directly upwind from you and has released way too much string. From your position, the drooping string could drop down to several 10s of feet up in the air (depending on the air velocity at the kite). Some kite-fliers tend to tie the string to an immovable object and leave it there. This puts the kite at the mercy of the wind patterns, which while usually consistent can at times result in the kite dropping down to a lower level than intended. This is a prime configuration for a “gal mattuwa”. As you would have guessed by now, you simply tie a rock to the end of a string, fling the rock over the drooping string of the enemy kite. Taking care not to be too rough (to prevent the taut kite string from snapping due to your string), you draw the string down and intercept enemy kite string. The kite is now yours! (unless your angry enemy invades your garden with a bunch of his friends, which then puts you in an awkward situation)
Other notables
Bow-and-arrow maattu: This is a personal invention of mine. Fashion a bow out of wood and string. Create an arrow with a stone tied to its tip and a string tied close to its nock. Shoot the arrow over the string of the enemy kite and follow the same procedure as the gal maattuwa.
Now go fly a kite…
Regardless of whether you want to engage in the morally questionable acts of maattu or not, kite-flying is a joyful pastime that provides you with the (now somewhat rare) motivation to look up at the sky and enjoy its beauty… and that of your kite. In addition, to an avid kite-flier, the pull of a kite-string is an amazing feeling…. indescribable in a certain sense. In this age where screens and displays are the focal point of hours of attention, my recommendation to young Sri Lankan parents is this: if your kid walks in and says “I want to fly a kite”, jump for joy and buy him/her a nice big one!
