The game which I longed to play as a child was Pattam parappu.  I loved to see the hundreds of colorful pattams or kites flying in the air - some of them seemed to nearly touch the heavens. Kite flying needs great skill and lots of pocket money. So as a boy, I remained an enthusiastic on-looker and tried to loot other people's kites whose strings were cut during fights.

Kites are of various shapes: they are mostly square; some are rectangular; a few are more special - two ovals joined together. Fine paper is used in making kites. This is strung on a frame of thin bamboo, one standing lengthwise, the other like a bow across it. The kite paper is pasted on to the frame with glue.

About three inches from the top, and four inches from the bottom of the lengthwise stick, fine thread treated with powdered glass, is fixed, forming a triangle. This is attached to hundreds of yards of thread, also treated with powdered glass and wound around a reel. The thread on the reel revolves in the hands of the learner as the expert flies the kite

The breeze may lift the kite higher and higher into the sky. I was sometimes allowed by the big boys to hold the kite when it had flown high enough.

The kite's pull on the string, as it flies high gives a great sense of delight. But I cut my hands often with the powdered - glass string. So I was never given enough paisas to buy a good kite of my own.

And when I did get a kite of my own, it never rose above the roofs of the village mud huts. If I did succeed in raising my kite with the help of the breeze, it got caught in the branches of a tree, or it was quickly cut and caught by a clever looter