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The most popular sport in Pakistan next to cricket, I think, would be kite flying. In Pakistan and many other Asian countries, kite flying is considered very artistic and it is a highly competitive pass-time.
Around mid-February comes Basant-the one day festival of kites. The original tradition was that you would start flying your kites at night and it would end the following day. But times have changed and so have the traditions. So now, people fly kites whenever they want in the day from their flat topped roofs.
Kites can be bought from kite shops or they can be hand made. To make a kite, you place layers of different colored tissue paper on top of each other then cut out the patterns. The bamboo sticks are splices which means, split lengthway into narrower pieces because regular pieces would be too heavy. The spine is glued to the tissue paper. The tail adds extra weight at the bottom to stop it from spinning. Many of the kites have geometric patterns created by placing tissue paper shapes on top of eachother. People fly paper kites with powdered glass covered string. The powdered glass, which is called Door, cuts the string of other kites in the air.
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