Before and after IKF Mangalore: Kites, Temples, and Campuses

As we told you in the previous article, IKF Mangalore 2025 was organised by kite flyers – the illustrious TeamMangalore India.

Organising a kite festival is hard … Once a budget is set, the balancing begins. On one hand you have the kite flyers, on the other the sponsors and the crowds. If the sponsors’ interests are maximised, usually the audience gets its fair share too – but the kiters are then treated just as an asset, a workforce for hire, pushed around with little opportunity for comment or complaint.

If a kite club does the festival, then the kite flyers are treated like kings – which can make the sponsors feel shortchanged, and the crowds disappointed.

But not in Mangalore, not this time. We’ve shown you the highlights of one of the best festival days ever, and we hope you got how we, lucky enough to be a part of it, felt there. IKF Mangalore managed to hit the sweet spot where the kiters, the sponsors, and the audience were in a perfect equilibrium even the unexpected rain couldn’t disturb.

But before we take you to the International Kite Drying Festival, we should introduce you to this guy:

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Chapter 1: The Past

What do we outsiders really know about India? Taj Mahal? Tandoori chicken? Bollywood? The Indus civilization, Ashoka, the Mughals, colonialism, Gandhi, independence, the Partition, Nehru, the Non-aligned movement … The Vedas, Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana, Kama Sutra … Mukerji, Tagore, Rushdie, Arundhati Roy … the first usage of zero, astronomy, Raman, Bose, tech support … Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam – and another one, the one whose adherents wouldn’t hurt an ant: Jainism.

Of the four major religions that sprung forth from the subcontinent, Jain Dharma may well be the oldest – and the most secluded, the most unknown. It was never a mass religion, and today Jains comprise less than half a percent of the population of India. But in the old times they ruled kingdoms and left us with some of the most intricate art and architecture of India.

One of the strongholds of Jains during the Hoysala and later the Vijayanagara Empire was the coastal plains of Karnataka and part of the Western Ghats, northeast of Mangalore: the Kalasa-Karkala kingdom.

We shan’t be going “deeper” into Jainism, its roots, its precepts and its pillars of ahiṃsā (non-violence), aparigraha (non-possessiveness), and anekāntavāda (hard to translate; non-onesidedness, but with a wider meaning that there is not just one aspect of the truth, and the absolute truth is unattainable to mere mortals) – mainly because we have just encountered it. It’s hard to talk about something one doesn’t know much and understands even less.

Jains have been subject to many hurtful stereotypes (and even more hurtful deeds), and we really don’t want to repeat them. It should suffice to say that Jainism seems to be one of the most ethical religions – philosophy systems, how-to-be-a-good-person-and-live-a-good-life guides, whatever you want to call them – there are or ever were.

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Anyway, our impeccable guides took us on a circumambulation trail of ancient Jain temples, from the Thousand pillars temple, Sāvira Kambada basadi in Moodabidri; to the Anekere basadi on an artificial island in the middle of an artificial lake where the royal elephants were bathed; to the incredibly symmetrical Chaturmukha basadi atop a black hill in Karkala; to the highlight of the trip, the colossal Gommateshwara statue, a 13 meters high idol of Bahubali, carved from a single block of granite, commanding the countryside from its elevated laterite perch.

Still, having absorbed spiritual ways of a particular religion, knowing the intricacies of history of some region, or being familiar with a distinct architectural style is not required at all to feel that special something while walking barefoot around a basadi, in a clockwise direction as the tradition guides.

A walk through history unknown – unknown yet familiar – is a profound experience. The bare feet touching the stones shaped by time, by the sun, the water, and other feet, as if joining a procession that began making the very same steps hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

Breathing holy air, encased in stone.

When a place becomes holy – when it gets recognised as such – it then is sacred for everyone and all time.

The ancient rituals may be unfathomable, the sacred words written in beautiful script unreadable, the solemn chants beyond understanding … but still clearly holy, sacred, divine.

A secret connection, a web of ley lines going from places like these through times and spaces, touching everyone who can feel the touch.

These temples, these abodes of the holy may have been created by the Jains, following the precepts of Jain dharma, holding Jain sacred messages. Yet everyone can, at least in spirit, understand – or, better, feel – what the people long gone strove to convey.

This trip, a circle around the sacred places of Kannada, was profound.

The atmosphere in the bus on the ride back was subdued, quiet – but in a content, even serene way.

We came back more than just a bit elated, and ready for flying.

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Chapter 2: The Future

So … the kite festival was over, but the beasts of wind were wet, so the international kite drying festival was needed. And the Mangalore team knew just the spot. Since we were treated like kings, we had to have lunch first – on a porch of a sweet little bungalow, surrounded by amazingly lush gardens of a healing institution. Exactly what we needed after the toils of kite flying …

The full name of the place is Alva’s Naturopathy Treatment Center, and is a part of a huge campus hosting Alva’s Homoeopathic Medical College, College Of Naturopathy And Yogic Sciences, Institute of Engineering and Technology, MBA College, and a Shobhavana Herbal Garden.

The place is huge and sprawling, and when we mentioned that to our host, he said – just wait till you see the real deal. This is but a small part of what we want to show you, and in any case there is not enough room to fly kites here.

And the bus took us to the place where the future of Karnataka – and of whole India – is being cultivated.

The heart of Alva’s Education Foundation.

It’s a full service educational system offering every step from Kindergarten to PhD, with courses in literary everything. 25.000 students live at the campus. The fleet of their school buses is, as Gregor exclaimed, larger than the Ljubljana Public Transport.

And they were waiting for us and our kites.

The deal was that we dry our kites in the huge sportsgrounds in front of a couple of colleges, and in return we tell the students all about kites. Even more: Pran’s cunning plan was to have Kosta pump up the kids so much a real stunt kite team could be established and trained – to shine at the IKF Mangalore 2026!

And so we did. A quick course in flying kites, a show by Andreas, some stunts by Kosta, and we too lifted the poor wet monsters, the manta and the trilobite, into the sky.

And the students were in awe. They couldn’t really decide what to watch and which kite to fly … the intricate handmade kites of Andreas, the mesmerising dance of Kosta’s stunt kites, the giants that need serious pulling …

The weather was perfect and the kites were dry in minutes, so we needed something else to keep the students entertained (it’s hard to compete with Kosta and Andreas) – and Ivor got just the right idea.

“Wait, what’s the name of our kite club?”

Yep, KAP Jasa. And KAP stands for kite aerial photography. Luckily Gregor brought the venerable MASAG β rokkaku along, and we always have the KAP kit with us.

The students were thrilled, and we let them do the whole KAP session by themselves. We just attached the camera to the kite line and handed them the spool!

But they had great fun …

… and the views of the campus from the kite were … fantastic.

We were called to the Principal’s office – first time in decades! – and we met the boss himself: Mr. Vivek Alva, the manager of this exceptional education centre. Then it was time to say goodbye …

Some nice chai and a masala dosa on the way back …

… and the 2025 IKF Mangalore was really over.

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Post Scriptum

The long ride back home started with a flight to Mumbai, and a really long layover to check all the major tourist traps: the Gateway to India, the Taj Mahal hotel, the Leopold cafe … We strolled up and down bazaars, drove with tuk-tuks and taxis, and even tried the brand new metro.

We had a good laugh too … Went to a juice parlour, checked the offer, and saw they had a selection of exotic juices – among them something called Ganga Jamuna.

“Ganga Jamuna?”
“Sure, three of those. You only live once!”

We haven’t even asked what this exotic refreshment is actually made of. Only when the nice waiter brought our concoctions, we realised …

… it’s an orange and sweet lemon juice. Ganga Jamuna FTW!

Mumbai is crazy, fantastic, completely chaotic; a global metropolis, a city without a centre, without shape or form.

We loved it.

Hope we meet again.

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Big thanks to Team Mangalore, to the crew (especially Akash!), to all the kiters, the audience, the drummers, the acrobats, the dancers, the sitar players, the violinist … to Ocean Pearl Inn, to Alva’s Naturopathy Treatment Center, to the students of Alva’s College, to Mr. Vivek Alva – and to everyone who made our visit to this part of Karnataka possible … and so unforgettable.

Kite aerial photos shot with Insta Ace Pro on MASAG β rokkaku.