Now, Modi takes on rivals in skies over Lucknow city

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was involved in different ‘war’ that was witnessed in the skies over the state capital on Friday.

People saw ‘Modi’ swerving and swooping in the sky and tangling with his rivals and on many occasions either made them vanish or forced them to retreat.

The occasion was ‘Jamghat’, a traditional festival celebrated a day after Diwali when people in the city of Nawabs fly colourful kites and compete with each other to dominate the skies.

This ‘Jamghat’, kites having the picture of Modi were sold in large numbers, say kite traders here. The kites had words such as ‘Mahanayak’ (super hero) written on many of them. Many kites also had slogans like ‘achhey din aye’ (good days have come).

“The shops had a large number of kites with Modi’s picture. We bought a dozen or so,” 17-year-old Sambhav Srivastava, an avid kite flyer and a resident of Janaki Puram locality in Lucknow, told Deccan Herald.

The skies over the old city areas such as Chowk, Aminabad and others were filled with kites of different kinds.

However, not many knew about Modi’s interest in kite flying. Bollywood star Salman Khan had joined Modi at the kite-flying festival on the occasion of ‘Makar Sankranti’ in Ahmedabad in January this year.

Though kite-flying starts from the day of ‘Narak Chaudas’, it reaches its peak on ‘Jamghat’ and continues for the next few days.

Avadh historians say that even the Nawabs used to fly kites on the banks of Gomti river in the city and compete with each other. The tradition is still being followed by many of their descendants though their numbers are not much.