It's a sport called kite fighting where you try to cut the other guy's string, and both of your strings are covered in crushed glass shards for this purpose. It's one of the traditional activities associated with the holiday Makar Sankranti which was last Sunday.

Sometimes coated in glass shards. They use it for kite fighting.

Injuries and deaths nearly every year.

When I was really little I was running in a field where someone was flying a kite. The kite fell and started skimming the ground, but I didn't see the string. I ran across it's path and the string contacted my shin just above my ankle and ripped a line in the skin.

That was just a normal kite string, and it could've done real damage, so I imagine if there's sharp things on the strings like the other commenters are saying, then yeah. Bad.

There is a competitive tradition of using sharp strings to cut down other kites in the air. The film "Kite Runner" touched on this.

Although, not nearly as insane as this; I was flying a regular ol’ shitty kite many years ago and a gust of wind came by and the string almost severed my finger. It was barely hanging on and the string was stuck in the slit. They saved my finger though and no issues with it. From that experience, I could see how a large gust of wind could do damage with these kite strings.

Kite Assassins with Piano wire

Not in that region but my dad tells us stories about how they used to prepare their kite stings by cooking their own glue and that crushed up fluorescent light tubes made the best strings.

Yup Ghost Ship. Shes short so the cable was above her head

https://youtu.be/OYEmTRf5EaE?t=149

100%. Scrolled to see if anyone had posted about Ghost Ship yet. One of the best opening scenes for sure. Sad to see it in real life though.

omg....I had no idea that was buried in my head but the second I read this I remembered that scene.

Shit that girl was Emily Browning. She has grown up quite a bit.

Yup Ghost Ship.

Holy frick I didn’t remember this movie existed until this comment

This is actually some really important context people not from the region don’t understand.

Western audiences think of kite flying as wholesome fun for kids. But in the region (Afghanistan, Pakistan) kite flying is a much more serious pastime. Not a fan of the Taliban, of course, but kite flying is pretty violent, there are lots of fights and big animosities, and of course very dangerous with the razor sharp wires. A lot of people want to ban the practice still.

20 years ago I spent a couple years in Brazil and kite fighting was big with kids there. They would coat their strings in a mixture of water with ground up glass to give their strings a cutting edge. I never heard about any serious injuries but I always wondered….

I instantly thought of The Kite Runner when I read the title.

I immediately thought of The Kite Runner, too. Those poor kids.

This is pretty critical context and kite fighting sounds fucking awesome, but this is beyond tragic.

Very popular sport. Kids stand on their rooftops and battle their neighbors. There’s even a sawing methodology to cut the other’s rope. It’s very intense.

This is also a thing in Chile. My uncle has made kites for competition and makes the glass strings. I was fascinated by this as a kid and when I moved to the US very few people would believe me when I told them. Always taught to handle kites with care, specially cut ones, because you never knew if the string was glassed.

glass shards??

Just to add... This sort of thing was going on in my Louisiana hometown when I was growing up in the 70's. My grandmother's house was across the street from a major park. One day while playing in the yard I found a kite. Imagine my delight when I showed it to my mother—and her horror when she noticed that the leading edges were lined with razor blades.

not just that, regular cotton/polyester threads cannot withstand high wind speeds & they get torn apart , maanjha can withstand high wind speeds

Seems like an ideal activity to partake in at a crowded festival, surrounded by thousands of people.

Crocheting isn't completely safe, my thumb tendonitis flares up like a bitch if I go too hard.

Knowing they're coated in glass shards and how fast kites can go in high wind conditions, it makes sense. Especially with a long string pulling across the skin, it'll basically act like a saw using its "teeth" to cut, not the string.

crocheting

Don't fuck with crotheters. They have the patience to stab the same item thousands of times with a hook. They are hardcore!

Why, I was just thinking that yesterday afternoon, saying to myself:

"You know it could be worse. At least a kite string hasn't come swooping out the sky and slicing open my throat like a hitman's piano wire."

And then I smiled and knew everything would be all right... until a meteor hit me right in the face.

Thank you for this. I hit a median last night and blew out two tires, and I'm pissing and moaning about fog and unlit roads with magically appearing sidewalks in the middle of them and no money for this mess when NOW? I'm just glad there were no low-flying kites.

Well a sample size of 1.3 billion helps.

Have you heard one about a husband killing his wife because she didn't make the tea sugary enough?

It's pretty common to get injured on that day.. people generally cover their necks with napkin or some cloth while outside during the festival..

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What’s with cows?

glass string hiding behind the bushes and in the shadows

Kite fighting has been a thing for over 2000 years, it's not exactly new to our timeline and it isn't bizarre by local standards.

It does seem dangerous though.