When I was a boy (in India), I used to fly kites like these. The thread was called "manja"— cotton thread impregnated with wallpaper paste or starch glue and rolled in ground glass. My best friend's older brother was incredibly skilled. He would have his kite swoop down, cut my line close to my hand and then tangle up his and my string (not a euphemism) and pull both kites down. I was on the roof of my house and he was down on the road!

that's a pretty awesome story.

gotta admit, i was half expecting to hear a story about the time you lost a finger while kiting.

Oh, we would get injuries — that glass powder was sharp. But only cuts that took forever to heal and sometimes got infected. They would put tinctures of mercurochrome, potassium permanganate and some sulphurous yellow stuff. We wore those colours like badges of pride! But…the kite festivals were far smaller in the early 60’s. And we didn’t have nylon or polyester kite strings.

How many people were killed last year? And the year before?

Yes, it's The Sun, but The Guardian and People also report.

the sun has more sensationalism in their content though

i heard about these competitions and was wondering how many deaths they cause.

Did you see the film—The Kite Runner? Powerful.

Actually It just came up when a podcaster I follow tried to get in to kitting. Apparently it's a thing in Canada as well in a variant, you add blades to the tip rather than the string.