Auckland: The Hindu harvest festival of Makar Sankranti, also celebrated as Pongal in India’s southern states, was celebrated worldwide on January 13/14. Besides the pomp, gaiety and community spirit that accompanies all Indian festivals Makar Sankranti is also celebrated with kite flying by many Indian communities.
In Auckland, the Vaishnav Parivar has been organising traditional kite flying competitions for six years now. This year it was held on Sunday, January 8 and was the biggest so far, according to the organisers.
Nearly 7000 people turned up throughout the day that fortunately had crystal clear weather and the right sort of breeze to help the plethora of kites to soar into the cloudless blue of the Auckland sky. The Kite festival was held at the Avondale racecourse in central Auckland.
While kite flying and competitions between kite flyers was the main attraction, it really was a family day out with fun rides, free face painiting, an array of food, DJ performances and a raffle draw.
Avneel Singh was the lucky winner of the raffle winning a return ticket to Sydney. There also were 16other prize winners that won a camera, mobile phone, digital photo frame among several others
Vaishnav Parivar plans to scale up the celebrations next year.