Her story, told along one string
She was handed the charkhi. She took the kite instead.
In most households, husbands flew the kites and wives held the winch. Bhavna Mehta’s story is what happened when she traded ends of the string — told here from her own telling and the public record.
A snapped kite, an angry glare, and a beginning
She came to Ahmedabad from Mumbai — a college athlete with sprint and long-jump firsts at Bombay University Stadium meets, her college’s Senior Sports Champion of 1989, and an economics graduate of S.N.D.T. Women’s University. Kites were not yet part of the picture.
Her first experience with them came after her marriage to Shailesh, a kite enthusiast. Handed the charkhi — the spool every wife was expected to hold — she fumbled it, and his kite was cut by an opponent.
She laughs about it now. She learned the art from her husband — then kept going, past where anyone expected her to stop.
I could not hold the charkhi properly and his kite was snapped by an opponent. I was embarrassed when Shailesh gave an angry glare.Bhavna Mehta, recalling 1992 in The Mooknayak, 2023
Sixteen years of practice, one public sky
Encouraged by her family — the kite club she would lead carries her son Deep’s name — she entered the 18th International Kite Festival in Ahmedabad in 2008: her first appearance as a competitive flyer in a field where women were rarely seen holding the line.
’09–’11
Three skies, three prizes
The festival learned her name
As president of Deep’s Kite Flying Club, she took First Prize at the Gujarat International Kite Festival three years running — each in a different craft category — and earned the title recorded in her citation: India’s first award-winning independent lady kite designer, maker, and flier.
- 2009First Prize — Foreign Type Collage Work Kite (“Sea Horse in the Sky”)
- 2010First Prize — Foreign Type Painted Kite (“Gompa” painting of Ladakh)
- 2011First Prize — Indian Type Painted Kite (“Raag Kamodi”)
The hands behind the kites
The artistry was never only kites. A craft teacher in the late 1990s, formally trained in jewellery design in 2006–07, organizing candle, mehndi, and natural soft-drink workshops by 2008 — she built Shyam Art & Craft into a working enterprise of handmade things. In 2013, GCCI’s Business Women Wing recognized her with its Swayam Siddha honour.
- 1998–99Painting, fine arts & crafts teacher
- 2006–07Jewellery-design training, Gujarat Council of Vocational Training
- 2008Candle, mehndi & natural soft-drink workshops
- 2013Special Achievement Award — Swayam Siddha, GCCI Business Women Wing
Six kites fly to Korea
At the Delhi Kite Festival in 2014 she met the Korean kitist Byong Ook Cho — so impressed he offered to buy her kites on the spot. She refused: one carried Prime Minister Modi’s signature. She promised to make new ones for him instead.
It took exactly one year, with the whole family pitching in. Six kites — Hanumanji lifting the mountain, a Gompa painting, a peacock-and-lotus tricolour, Raga Basant, a Warli painting, and Rudra Avtar — were parceled to the World Kite Museum in Korea in 2015, where they hold a permanent place.
The same seasons put her kites in famous hands at home: a “Jai Ho” promotional kite flown with Salman Khan in 2014, a “Shamitabh” kite flown with Amitabh Bachchan and Dhanush in 2015, and a campaign kite for the police’s 1091 women’s-safety helpline.
Bhavna’s kites will be displayed in the Asia department. She makes kites meticulously and beautifully. I thank her for making kites for the museum.Byong Ook Cho, Korean kitist, in DNA, February 2015
Epics over Jakarta, a trophy from Portsmouth
For 70 years of India–Indonesia friendship, she created more than 50 Ramayana- and Mahabharata-themed kites — displayed in Jakarta in May 2018 on the occasion of the Prime Minister’s three-nation visit to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and appreciated in writing by FICCI’s Gujarat State Council. A year later, Portsmouth International Kite Festival in the UK named her work Best Artistic Kite.
Her themes range wide — mythology, ragas, avatars, spirit energies, the animal and bird kingdom — paintings engineered to survive the wind.
The sky writes back
At the 2023 Gujarat International Kite Festival, fellow flyers dedicated a kite bearing her picture — she calls it the best surprise gift she has ever received. In Spring 2024, the American Kitefliers Association journal carried her story to flyers worldwide.
Now
The ground & the kitchen
Teaching became the point
Through Taruni Pragati Trust — a separate initiative she founded — she supports women’s vocational learning and entrepreneurship in rural Gujarat: handicrafts, mehndi, jewellery making, natural sharbat, mukhwas, and cooking. Her own kitchen became a classroom too: cookery classes, demonstrations, and television appearances.