ahmedabad for minesh gajjar a resident of satellite visiting raipur on the eve of uttarayan is a ritual that he and his family have followed for over two decades the festival is not complete without shopping for kites manja glasslaced thread tapes and so on says gajjar an engineer but this year we are also shopping for pretied kites to save timethe skill of knotting manja to the kite to which the string is attached kinya in gujarati is considered to be at the heart of the kiteflying art those good at it might not be aware of the science of lift drag or air surface tension but they make the perfect knot identifying the zero points shun puravvi in gujarati for horizontal balance to keep the kite afloat for hourspaavan solanki an amdavadi kitist who is an advisor to the government of telangana for its kite festival said that enthusiasts like him learnt by participating in the annual ritual of preparing kites with kinya the season of kites used to arrive shortly after diwali for many of my generation he said these days few children have terraces to practise or enjoy the hobby perhaps its the reason why many cant fly kiteshiral choksi a kite shop owner in raipur said now with families shrinking and a majority of youth unfamiliar with the art of shun puravvi we have observed that normal kites and those with pretied knots are selling in equal proportion this yearkaushik modi a wholesaler of kites agreed for a kodi a bunch of 20 kites the normal price range is rs 70 to rs 85 one has to add rs 10 to rs 15 extra for the knots he said there is a clear demarcation in demographics those above 40 still prefer to tie the knot themselves whereas youngsters want it readymade the trend was not evident five to seven years ago but now the majority of queries are for preknotted kites so we now have almost all variants with kinya available moreover children and youth dont have enough time for the sport that is reducing the number of experts these days we hardly see a large number of kites except on two days of uttarayan said virendra bhavsar a resident of kalpur the festival has retained its importance as a family event complete with an undhiyu feast music and blaring horns goggles and caps and of course the cries of kaipo che but we need to preserve the art of competitive kiteflying that has given us joy for so many decadestied to traditionthe citys rich legacy of kiteflying has produced worldclass kitists and pioneers such as bhanu shah paavan solanki who is advising the government of telangana on its threeday kite festival said that five teams and about 50 kitists represent india at different events round the year people like me always adored kitists who brought down most kites or flew kites in any condition he said even foreign kitists