Somewhere beneath the thousands of multicoloured kites that flash above the rooftops in defiance of a government ban, Rizwan Ahmed is mourning the death of his four-year-old son Shayan.
”You cannot imagine the horrible and tragic scene. My son’s throat was completely cut open,” he says from his humble home in a suburb of Lahore, Pakistan’s teeming cultural hub and second largest city.
”But I hope the blood of my son will save the lives of many other innocent children.”
Little Shayan was one of ten people, mostly children, who died last week during the frenzied run-up to the spring festival of Basant, their heads partly severed by glass-coated, steel or nylon kite twine.
The cords are razor-sharp so they can slash the strings of rival kites during aerial duels, but when they fall across roads they become ”like cheesewire”, according to one policeman.
Spurred by angry protests, the authorities shocked the country by outlawing kites the day before the centuries-old rite and arresting more than 1 000 kite-flyers and sellers.
Heavy-hearted socialites quickly cancelled fabulous parties in their fairy-lit mansions, while corporate bashes on rooftops overlooking the red sandstone Badshahi mosque and 16th century Lahore Fort were called off.
But late on Saturday night — the climax of the festival — as the police tired of chasing through streets choked with exhaust fumes and firecracker smoke, rumours of Basant’s demise appeared premature.
White, moth-like kites began to fill the dark sky just before midnight, fleetingly lit by giant spotlights, while jubilant cries of ”bo kata!” [I cut it!] rang out above pulsating bhangra music.
”Normally it’s much better than this. But at least people are having a go now the cops are in bed,” said one middle-aged man, smiling as he wrestled with a kite string — illegally — at one impromptu roof party.
A few hours of sleep later and kites coloured red, yellow and blue were soaring above the smog again on Sunday afternoon, before falling into roads and draping themselves alarmingly across powerlines.
The attempt to ban Basant went to the heart of 21st century Pakistan. The festival exemplifies the fun-loving yet traditional spirit of the country’s most liberal city, while its emergence in the last decade as a major tourist and commercial event shows Pakistan’s economy booming.
Coca-Cola is the festival’s major sponsor while even tiny companies print their names on kites.
But the chaotic crackdown, the obstinacy of the flyers who refuse to use safe string and the frequent power cuts caused by falling kites embody some of the key problems in poor, military-ruled Pakistan.
Then, as usual in this Islamic republic of 150-million people, there is the religion question. Basant has long been a target of fundamentalists who say the festival has Hindu or pagan origins.
Lahorites spoke of their sadness at both the unfortunate deaths and at the decision to outlaw the event.
”I won’t be flying any kites this Basant. To see ourselves responsible for killing people and killing the sport we have followed so passionately is heartbreaking,” said Ashaar Rehman, a prominent journalist.
Pakistan’s supreme court outlawed kites in 2005, but the ban was lifted for 15 days for Basant at the request of the provincial government — which then promptly reinstated it last Friday.
Kamran Lashari, who as a former senior official in Lahore was largely responsible for making Basant the big event it is today, said the solution was to ban the deadly strings and to educate the public about the risks.
”The way is not to close it down but to strongly regulate it. It needs to be protected, it’s the only time that the old city becomes one family, from street boys to the multinationals,” added Lashari, who now heads Islamabad’s capital development authority.
Kite-flyers said their proposals to the government for strict Basant rules had fallen on deaf ears.
”There should be kite-flying zones for professionals. It is haphazard kite-flying which is responsible for the killings,” said Khawaja Nadeem Wyne, president of the Kite Dealers’ Association of Lahore.
Meanwhile the Pakistani authorities have a year to figure out how to keep the festival going while saving the lives of people like 18-year-old Nadeem Pasha.
”He was riding his bike when the string slit his throat,” his father Haji Sairaj Din told Agence France-Presse. ”The ban on kite-flying is a matter of satisfaction for me and I will demand that the government bans it permanently”.