Kites take to sky over South Fayette for India Day
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Tarur Joshi and Sujas Ghiya team up to fly a kite at Fairview Park in South Fayette Township.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Mehndi artist Kadambari at work
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Mehndi by Kadambari
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Nila and Paranjay Borkhetaria, whose business is Badhani4U, show a traditionally colorful garment.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Mandar Kulkami watches as the kite he was holding takes off skyward.
Charlie Brown would have had a tough time of it on Makar Sankranti.
Among the misadventures of Charles Schulz’s beloved antihero were innumerable attempts at launching a kite into the air, only to be foiled by, say, a kite-eating tree.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Khushi Kantawala of Scott Township and Krishna Shah of Green Tree take a break from flying their kites.
Meanwhile, kite flying is a major feature of the festival of Makar Sankranti in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
“You see the sky with all the colors, the yellow, orange, blue, white,” Jigar Shah said during a sunny, if humid, afternoon in South Fayette Township’s Fairview Park. “It looks awesome. So we took that idea and brought it here.”
He serves as treasurer of the Gujarati Samaj of Greater Pittsburgh, a cultural organization that held its annual India Day Festival on July 15 at Fairview. The group promotes Indian heritage while providing financial support to local nonprofits.
“The idea for this event came from a situation where all of our kids grew up here, and they are kind of losing their roots,” Priyesh Shah, the group’s president and a South Fayette resident, explained. “So for them, we do something like this, where we bring lots of ethnic Indian food here. We bring lots of ethnic Indian clothes, merchandise, henna, so they get connected to their roots.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Mandar Kulkami holds a kite while some friends prepare for its launch.
“And we invite everybody.”
Despite heavy rain early and late in the day, several hundred people made their way out to the park to shop, eat and drink, listen to music and, of course, fly kites, all of which at the event came from India.
Youngsters who took time off from the featured activity had the opportunity to play some games that are popular in India. For example:
“They have a spoon in their mouth, and at the end of the spoon we place a lemon,” Dr. Margi Desai, a pediatrician who serves as the Gujarati Samaj’s education secretary, said. “You have to balance it as you walk from one end to the other and make sure that the lemon stays on the spoon. And then whoever gets to the other end first wins.”
As for henna tattooing, or mehndi, an artist named Kadambari who has 20-plus years’ experience spent the day working her magic for anyone who wanted an intricate temporary body decoration.
Gujarat is the westernmost state in India.
And as for food and beverages, all kinds of homemade delicacies adorned the menu, from kulfi (ice cream) and chaas (yogurt-based drink) to vada pav (fried potato with spices) and savory samosas.
The Gutaraji Samaj – the latter word translates as “society” – takes its name from India’s westernmost state, which is north of Mumbai, the nation’s most populous city. Membership in the organization, though, is not limited to any particular race, religion or ethnic origin.
For more information, visit www.gsogp.org.
By Harry Funk
Staff writer
hfunk@thealmanac.net
By Harry Funk/Staff writer/hfunk@thealmanac.net
Gujarati Samaj of Greater Pittsburgh officers, from left: Dr. Margi Desai, education secretary; Jigar Amin, secretary; Mehul Vakil, program secretary; Priyesh Shah, president; Jigar Shah, treasurer; and Ankit Patel, sports secretary