KARACHI: Though kite shops at Patang Wali Gali in Empress Market wear a vacant look despite the spring season, associated with Basant or the festival of kite flying, the shopkeepers there expect business to pick up after school exams.

The kites swaying in the air outside these shops have also faded in colour giving it all a sad look. “No, they have just faded in the sunlight,” says Mohammad Usman, a kite shop owner in the area.

But the very fact that they have faded under the sun points towards the fact that they aren’t selling well. “We will get customers after school closes for the summer after the exams, you’ll see,” he says.

There are stacks of kites made out of tissue or crepe paper in many colours at the shops. “The ones made here are for Rs15 each so children come to buy many of them together because being delicate they also tear up easily. The Chinese kites that are more colourful and durable are a bit more expensive, in the vicinity of Rs500 mostly,” he explains.

In front of him are a row of strings in various colours. “Red, brown and grey are favourite colours for manjha as they go with most kites,” he says.

Coming to manjha or kite strings, one comes to the controversy being associated with them.

“Kite flying is an obsession in Lahore. Out here in Karachi we are only suffering due to the bad publicity about kites and the string used in kite flying in Punjab,” says Mohammad Arif, who has been involved in the kite-making and selling business since 1991.

“In Punjab, children are on rooftops looking upwards to the sky and their kites without realising where they themselves are going. Many have this way fallen off rooftops. Some get electrocuted.

“But the main problem as you may know already is mostly associated with the string being used in flying kites. Kids want strings coated in iron grain or glass in order to be able to cut an opponent’s string and bring his or her kite down. Sometimes, string makers also coat them with toxic chemicals for this purpose,” he discloses, while claiming that out there they have stopped selling these strings. “The concept is simple. If we don’t sell them, kids won’t be using them,” he says.

“We are selling the Chinese nylon string or the plain manjha, which is also available in many colours,” says Hifazat Yar Khan, who has been in the kites business since 1968.

“Even in India they use the plain cotton string,” he adds.

“We are aware that due to this string controversy the kite industry, which is still a cottage industry, may just close down. Therefore, we have decided to report to the district commissioners about anyone selling the banned string in our community,” he says before bringing out a membership form for the Karachi Kite Sellers/Manjha Maker Welfare Association. Members of the association have to take an oath to refrain from doing anything that might cause harm to anyone or the country.

Meanwhile, in Bizerta Lines — a small low-income area behind the Christian Cemetery and the Army Graveyard — there are several households busy making kites the whole day long. A container full of lai or glue prepared from white flour and copper sulphate lies next to bundles of wood and splinters and paper cut into kite shapes in fan-less but airy rooms where kids are busy gluing the flexible splinters to the paper. Haris Khan says he makes some 1,500 kites this way from 11am to 5pm. “I have been doing this work since the age of 14 and make Rs400 a day this way,” he adds.

“I am also a master of kite flying — a fun sport that I indulge with friends on Sundays,” he says with a twinkle in his eye.

In another corner, Mohammad Kashif is shaving and smoothening the splinters in order to balance them after chopping and cutting a piece of wood into thin splinters.

“We get the wood for splinters from Myanmar. One stack of wood has 100 pieces and costs around three dollars,” says Mohammad Arif.

In another home, there are young and old women busy threading the string through the narrow kite holes. Arif says women have thin nimble fingers so they are perfect for this job. “Keeping aside their daily earnings from this work, girls have prepared entire dowries for their weddings while housewives help supplement the family income,” he adds.