‘High-flying’ fun at kite festival

People queuing up to buy kites.

By Ramesh Mathew/Staff Reporter

The sky above the Doha Corniche was adorned with kites yesterday as hundreds of Qatar residents thronged the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) Park for the Ferozkoh kite festival, held in the country for the first time.

People of different ages and nationalities got busy flying kites of various colours along the sprawling grounds of the park.

Long queues of kite-flying enthusiasts could be seen in front of the dedicated zone, where brightly-coloured handmade kites designed by Afghan craftsmen were available for sale.

Quite a number of elders, many sporting traditional multi-coloured turbans that are a visible feature of the Afghan culture and heritage, were also seen flying hand-woven kites.

Kite flying is as much a part of the Afghan’s rich cultural heritage as the daily life of the community members in the Central Asian country.

The Ferozkoh festival also served as a platform to showcase the rich artistry and craftsmanship of the Afghan artists, which saw them turning handmade sheets of paper into flying objects of different shades and hues.

Kites on display yesterday were designed by a team of craftsmen led by Zalgai from Kabul, whose family reportedly has had a tradition of kite making.

The festival, which lasted for more than four hours, also featured a number of stalls serving Afghan delicacies, as well as activities like traditional Attan dance performances, face painting, puppet making, and Afghan music shows, the last one featuring performers from Kabul.

The live music show, featuring Homayun Sakhi and Seair Hashmi with the accompaniment of a two-member orchestra, one of them playing tabla, went down well with the audience.

The team performed two hour-long shows with a break of one hour.

Storytelling in the Arabic and English were among the other highlights of the festival.

Earlier MIA director Aisha al-Khater welcomed the visitors from the specially-erected stage, where some of the day’s events including the music show were held.

In his brief address, Afghanistan embassy charge de affaires Mohamed Qasim Himat expressed happiness that traditional artists and craftsmen from his country were given an opportunity to showcase their talents in a state-supported event.

The kite festival was part of “Ferozkoh: Tradition and Continuity in Afghan Art”, an exhibition currently being held at the MIA’s temporary gallery on the ground floor.

This exhibition, which runs until June 22, is the result of a partnership between the MIA and the Turquoise Mountain Institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture (TMI) in Kabul.

The exhibition features 37 historical objects from the MIA’s collection – artifacts from four dynasties with connections to Afghanistan: the Ghaznavids (977-1186 CE), the Timurids (1370-1506 CE), the Mughals (1526-1857 CE), and the Safavids (1501-1722 CE), and 37 contemporary pieces created specially for the show by TMI students, who drew inspiration from the former.

1) One of the Afghan craftsmen applying the finishing touches to a kite.

2) Organisers trying to locate a kite for a customer from among those they brought for the festival.