By Robin Lane Fox
Financial Times, Feb. 27, 2026
Kites have been flying in thousands off rooftops while I have been down at ground level, garden visiting, garden working and looking up. The kites have been flying during Basant, the festival which marks the start of spring in India and Pakistan. It has a long history, but in 2007 was banned in one of its major bases, Lahore, after a series of injuries, some fatal, in the crowds. This year it returned to the city, under close surveillance, a cue for hundreds of thousands to launch kites, share music and spectate. Political slogans and pictures are banned on the kites themselves and now have to be flown on approved types of string.
The spring colour that they celebrate is yellow. Around 1300AD the fine Sufi poet and musician Ameer Khusrau wanted to console his spiritual master who was grieving from the loss of his nephew; he decided to sing for him at the Basant festival. He dressed as a woman in a yellow skirt and is said to have worn a garland of marigolds like those he saw on women in the streets. He even held yellow mustard flowers, a traditional accompaniment to the festival, as mustard blooms in the fields as spring begins. Khusrau’s spiritual master was so amused by the sight of the poet in women’s clothing that he emerged from his grief and joined the celebrations.
Continue reading: The grand, golden gardens of Lahore