Basant festival in Dubai from 30th

DUBAI: A grand kite flying festival ‘Basant Bahar’ will be held at Wahat Al Zaweya development on Dubai-Al Ain Road from January 30 to 31. The event is being organised by Al Ghurair Exchange in coordination with various Asian community groups in the UAE. “The two-day festival will feature kite-flying competitions, traditional food stall, music and activities for families and bachelors,” said Syed Umar Farooq, General Manager of Al Ghurair Exchange. He told a press conference in Dubai that the main objective of holding the ‘Basant Bahar’ festival was to provide an opportunity to India and Pakistani expatriates to celebrate their traditional ‘Basant’ (kite flying) festival, which is big event back home. The annual ‘Basant’ festival is quite popular in India and Pakistan, and is held to welcome the spring season by flying kites and cooking traditional food. “We are holding this event for the second consecutive year after massive response to the first festival last year,” he noted, reported foreign media on Sunday. Farooq expected that more than 7,000 people would participate in the festival, which was attended by around 5,000 people last year. Rizwan Ashraf Rana from Wahat Al Zaweya said that his company was pleased to provide space for the community festival because it would help bring them together to celebrate the festive season. Ali Hassan, Business Development Manager at Al Ghurair Exchange, said that the organisers would also provide people with hundreds of free kites in addition to gifts to participants. However, he asked participants to bring their own kites as well. “There will be live singing and DJ playing music while drum beaters will also entertain the people,” he said, adding that there would be separate areas for bachelors and families. Though, there will be a plenty of food stalls, people will still be allowed to do barbecue in the designated areas. The festivities will start at 8pm on January 30 and will continue until 7pm on January 31. Some leading Indian and Pakistani community members will also be invited to the event. Asif Siddique, head of sales at a food company, said his company was pleased to be part of this unique festival, which is open to all communities.