Kite-flying amongst Indians is an exciting sport, quite different to the tame amusement of merely seeing how high a kite will go. The Indian kites are nearly always quite small, made of thin coloured paper pasted on to a frame of very slender wooden splints. The better kites are made of paper of several different colours tastefully combined, and often decorated with gold. Strong thread is used, of which the enthusiastic flyer has a large store on a wooden roller, which he intrusts to some small confederate who pays it out or takes it in as required, and is proud to be allowed to have this share in the sport.
But the real purpose of Indian kite-flying is to do battle with somebody else's kite up in the air. You have to try and so manœuvre your kite that its thread crosses that of your opponent, who may be stationed quite a long way off and out of sight. He on his part will try and avoid you and get the upper hand himself. In the hands of expert flyers the contest is most exciting. Crowds will gather and watch the result with intense interest. The kites dodge, and rush upwards, and dive downwards, as if they were alive, and the fight often goes on for a long time. The thread is doctored with glass which has been pounded into fine dust and mixed with gum. This gives the thread great cutting capacity, so that if it fairly crosses that of its opponent, by a dexterous sawing movement the thread is cut, and the liberated kite sails away on its own account.
Then follows intense excitement amongst the crowds of onlookers far and near. The kite, without the support of its line, soon begins to flutter downwards. It is an established tradition that it becomes the property of the person into whose hands it falls. The original owner is rarely able to get near enough to secure it. Its zigzag course makes it problematical where it will fall. Generally those who think they are going to get it are disappointed by a final flutter, which takes it out of their reach into another pair of outstretched hands. Not unfrequently nobody gets it, because it is torn to shreds amongst the many hands held up to grasp it.
Some schoolboys spend on kites, during their season, every farthing that comes to them; and kites can be bought from a farthing upwards. They have not a long life, even at the best of times. Frequently they get torn by the wind on their first journey heavenwards, and a torn kite can rarely be repaired to much purpose. Flying competitions on a large scale, with substantial prizes for the winners, are organised, and attract crowds of spectators. The competitors are for the most part men, some being of mature age. It is a wholesome and entirely harmless form of amusement, except for the betting which takes place at the big contests.
There is a fine game called itte-dhandu, after the names of the two pieces of wood with which it is played. It is a little like tip-cat. The itte is a rounded bit of wood 2-1/2 inches long and perhaps an inch in diameter. Sometimes the ends are made to taper, but experts say that this is not correct. The dhandu is a stick of similar diameter and about 15 inches long. It is a most exciting game, with an elaborate code of unwritten rules. It can be played by any number of persons from two onwards. The whole field is kept in constant occupation, movement, and excitement. I have in vain tried to get some one to commit the rules to paper. While the game is in season there is no anxiety about how to provide for the wholesome amusement of schoolboys, because they play it in every vacant interval, from early morning till they go tired and happy to bed. But directly the proper season has ended, the game is dropped till the next year. One of its many advantages is that almost any jungle will provide wood from which the itte and the dhandu are easily shaped with a pocket knife.
A game, not unlike "Tom Tiddler's ground," is very popular, chiefly on moonlight nights, amongst men and boys. It is often played in the streets of cities when traffic has ceased. The ground is divided into squares, either by scraping boundaries in the dust, which lies thick in the streets of a native city; or else at night by pouring water along the lines, which makes a very conspicuous mark on the dusty surface in the vivid moonlight of the East. This childish game is played with great delight by people whom you might think were much too old for such amusement, and it nearly always forms part of the programme of any village festival.