Basant killjoys

With popular pastime banned, Lahore winters are empty and meaningless

In these particularly grim and apprehensive times, to talk or even to think of a lost festival of immense popularity might appear grotesque and frivolous to some folks. Why now, will be the angry refrain? But the answer and the reason lie within this very sentence. First, long beset by weighty problems and ‘utterly consumed with sharp distress’, the battered and bruised people badly need a psychological break, and the now banned Basant unfailingly provided a unique safety valve, a welcome refuge from everyday pressures to millions from various social classes and diverse professional backgrounds. Second, even if the Punjab government does condescend to give the green signal for the 2018 festival, usually held in the month of February, the time to do so is now, so as to draw up and codify the urgently needed safety rules which would govern the event, and to enable the skilled artisans or craftsmen associated with the activity to prepare their wares in time. Also, given a definite official date, thousands of expatriates and foreigners can syncronise their holidays and vacations with it, as happened in the past.

But as it is, the short-lived winter will soon be upon us, and again without the age old cultural custom of kite-flying and its frenzied day-night spring apogee, Basant, both banned under Supreme Court orders since 2005, and thereafter considered a particularly heinous crime by the Punjab government, landing its few daring enthusiasts straight in jail, if caught in the act by an, in this specific pastime at least, extra-vigilant and almost crusader-like police force. For the true Lahori buffs and old style connoisseurs of this once harmless and extremely intricate sport, this is a time of intense inner torture for being mere helpless spectators as the short winter days flit by, with their gentle wafting breezes, clear blue skies and mellow sunshine. The Zephyr gusts seem to pierce one’s very soul and hopeless eyes instinctively scan the heavens for any sign of illicit but colourful kite-flying action, but the gaze only encounters black crows and kites of the animal variation, lazily drifting on the multitude of air currents, also ideal for the paper kites that once upon a time dotted the Lahore landscape. And the historic city, renowned for its Cockney-like wit, scholarship, gourmet food, and fairs and festivals has become dull, soulless and sad, it has forgotten how to laugh, and with all the crushing problems, even if people laugh, it is the laughter of despair.

Since the last couple of years, Lahorite’s hopes of a 24-hour Basant revival, incorporating both the dazzling night affair with lighting, fireworks and white coloured kites, and the more traditional day-long mayhem with brightly coloured kites of various types, social get-togethers embellished with the choicest culinary delights and loud music, have somewhat optimistically first been raised and then dashed by an inexplicably hostile Punjab government. Various devices and solutions to the impasse have been floated at different times: a ‘kite city’ in the suburbs, confining Basant to its original humble home, the walled city, holding it in the environs of the now nearly treeless Changa Manga ‘forest’, or in some other officially designated locations.

In 2017, the efforts of an 8-member Basant committee almost came to fruition and its proposals for a safe festival duly addressed the blood-stained aberrations appearing in kite-flying in a realistic, practical and workable manner. Sale of upgraded thread for kite flying ‘dogfights’ from official outlets only, limiting the size of kites, using traditional round ‘pinna’ to wound the ‘dor’ or ‘manja’ (which is thread enhanced with finely ground glass), using only thin threads of low tension which break easily, banning motorcycles and their particularly vulnerable drivers from the roads for the 24 hours of basant, or in any case, educating them not to venture out without a small vehicle-mounted aerial or antenna to deflect the deadly falling string of the cut or stray kites, and confining Basant to the walled city were among its proposals. The education minister publicly spoke of a February 2017 Basant, but the government spokesman hemmed and hawed and in the end, the chief minister bluntly ended all speculation with his ‘complete BAN on basant’ tweet. The irony is that ‘fallout’ Basant is still being celebrated in many cities of the Punjab, as well as in KP and Balochistan, without attracting the tender attentions of the local police force.

So, now we are again at that delicate time of year when the Basant debate will resurface with greater intensity and acrimonious divisiveness, both in the print and electronic media. Surely, with firm political will (no doubt a rare commodity) and sparing a thought for the hundreds of thousands left without livelihoods because of the Basant and kite flying ban, or as a means of genuine enjoyment to millions of over-the-edge citizens, offering a boost to the ailing economy of billions of rupees and earning much –needed foreign exchange from Basant-specific tourists, the government should revisit its strange and stubborn biased stance against revival of the festival, using the 2017 Basant committee’s proposals and code of conduct for a safe Basant to ensure the paramount public safety. As for those misguided and ill-informed elements who condemn Basant as ‘un-Islamic ‘or ‘of Hindu origins’, it has been aptly stated in a different context that the ‘Puritans (in Oliver Cromwell’s England) hated bear-baiting not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators’. That is the original, typical Puritanical mindset in a nutshell: happiness, joy, fun and amusement are all deadly sins. Regulation of relevant laws and their strict implementation, not an outright, indefinite ban, as in the case of basant, are its simple and effective antidotes.