{"id":86899,"date":"2026-01-24T18:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=86899"},"modified":"2026-01-25T00:52:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T04:52:23","slug":"86899","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=86899","title":{"rendered":"30 Feet Long Three Dimensional \u201cAxolotl\u201dKite Designed by 28 year old Yogarasa Prakash Wins First Prize at the Popular Kite Festival in Valvettithurai"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

S.Rubatheesan<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the past two months, Yogarasa Prakash, 28, and his close circle of friends had a \u2018secret operation\u2019 unfolding late into the nights on the beach of Valvettithurai.<\/p>\n

With the Northern coastal village in deep sleep mode and empty narrow lanes that lead to the coast of Palk Straits, they used to carry their massive \u2013 30 feet (10 yards) long- 3D kite, designed by Prakash for test runs ahead of the kite competition on Thaipongal day.<\/p>\n

His friends were told of an informal non-disclosure agreement- not to reveal anything about his design of his kite, a design based on Axolotl, an endangered species found in the Mexican sea.<\/p>\n

At the kite festival on Thaipongal day, his design won first prize out of around 60 entries, earning him a one-sovereign (8-gram) gold chain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe that we won the first prize. It was an effort of four years and I continuously took part in the competition. My family and friends, in particular, made this happen,\u201d Prakash told the Sunday Times after winning his prize amidst a cheering crowd as thousands of onlookers witnessed the magic in the sky.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

His creative design, mixed with technology- totally depending on wind power, was designed in a way, that the kite- Axoltol grew its own tails, gave birth to a new born \u2013 all happening in the sky with adjustments and techniques he controlled with threats on his hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had around 15 test runs as we had to make many adjustments, alignments of threats on separate kites that were within the body of mother axolotl to release once up in the sky,\u201d he explained.
\nThe panel of judges commended the creative design that made use of technology too.<\/p>\n

Prakash, who works in a welding shop, uses his spare time to design kites. For this year\u2019s competition, he also designed another massive kite\u2014an airplane that drops relief packages\u2014which took third place.
\n\u201cMy family was very supportive and I used the space in our living room and garage to house these massive designs. It was a bit difficult when painting them but they supported me to the end,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge, Praksh said, when it comes to designing his kites is sourcing good quality light weight bamboo sticks. He and his friends spend two whole days around the Northern coast from Valvettithurai to Kankesanthurai (KKS) searching for bamboo sticks that had washed ashore.
\nThe kite festival in Valvettithurai dates back to the 1960s. This coastal town was well known for sea trade for centuries with countries in the Southeast Asian region, including the then Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Singapore, and Cambodia. It was this same town of shipbuilders\u2014famously known for building the Annapoorani, which sailed to Boston, USA, in 1938<\/p>\n

V. Maheswaran, 58, a kite enthusiast himself recalled his young days when the area was well known for massive kites without the tail pieces. \u201cWe have a rich culture of kite designing here and many people come here from various parts of the region to see the kites. Personally, I believe the quality of the designs have gone down but I am glad some youngsters have taken to designing kites creatively with the support of community organisations,\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the end of the war in 2009, the Valvai Vigneswara Community Centre in Valvettithurai has hosted the annual kite festival to keep the tradition of kite designing alive in the village.<\/p>\n

The community centre\u2019s treasurer Vimalathas Kavichelvan told the Sunday Times that the organisation supports this initiative with contributions from the public, the diaspora and well-wishers.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year, we try to make the competition more colourful. This year, we included \u2018technology\u2019 as a key aspect in the judging criteria to encourage more designers to use their skills in the designing process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Apart from the top three prizes of gold chains and coins, at least Rs 1.5 million was distributed among some 60 kite designers who took part in this year\u2019s competition based on the points they received from the Judges.
\nAustralian High Commissioner Matthew Duckworth and Indian Consul General in Jaffna, S. Sai Murali were the chief guests at the kite festival.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:Sunday Times<\/em><\/p>\n

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By S.Rubatheesan For the past two months, Yogarasa Prakash, 28, and his close circle of friends had a \u2018secret operation\u2019 unfolding late into the nights on the beach of Valvettithurai. With the Northern coastal village in deep sleep mode and empty narrow lanes that lead to the coast of Palk Straits, they used to carry …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘30 Feet Long Three Dimensional \u201cAxolotl\u201dKite Designed by 28 year old Yogarasa Prakash Wins First Prize at the Popular Kite Festival in Valvettithurai’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86899"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86902,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86899\/revisions\/86902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}