A -
A +

The scooters on the streets of Gujarat have been well prepared for the kite festival with an innovative design. Along with the colourful kites come the equally colourful, but somewhat deadly, manjha- essentially the thread to which the kite is attached. This manjha is coated with glass particles, to allow people to bring other kites to the ground by cutting their threads. And, when that happens, the atmosphere is filled with victory cries of ‘Kai Po Che’- meaning ‘I have cut’.
However, the manjha has also proven to be hazardous to motorists, birds and pedestrians. It’s not uncommon to hear of instances where motorists have suffered, caught unaware, by a floating manjha from a falling kite. In the past few years an innovative method to deal with the manjha madness has been designed.

The steel wire across the front part of the scooter is seen on almost all scooters at this time of the year, sold at an affordable price across traffic signals at Ahmedabad, this innovation has been valued by almost everyone on two wheelers. The scooter guard is light and affordable, doesn’t affect too much of the vision of the rider and also most importantly it protects the rider from the manjha.
Who could have ever thought of this use of a thin steel wire, but someone did! Innovative designs are always born out of a need. The needs are all around us, we just need to design the solution.

Happy Uttarayan/Pongal/Bihu/Lohri!