Last month, Delhi’s AQI soared above 400. At a time when death by breath is at our doors, somebody is thinking beyond human mortality. Shahina Parveen has birds on her mind, and more specifically, the pigeons. “Air pollution affects our pigeons, they get eye infections and become lethargic, but we take care of them, like our own children,” says the 38-year-old.For the story of Parveen and her pigeons, we have to go back many years to the time when she made up her mind to bring up pigeons one day. She was then all of eight.
Growing up in Old Delhi, Parveen was surrounded by kabootarbaaz — Hindustani for pigeon racers. Seeing her father and her brothers take part in the sport, she began to get interested. “The love for this sport has been in my family for generations, but never did a woman participate,” she says. School, however, put a stop to it even as she observed the men in her family enthusiastically carry on participating. It wasn’t until 1996, after her marriage to Mohammad Arif, that she would go on to be a practising kabootarbaaz in Delhi, a realm dominated by men.
After she moved to her new home right behind Zakir Hussain College in the Khwaja Mir Dard Basti, amid juggling household chores, she found solace in tending to the pigeons her husband kept. “My husband is also a kabootarbaaz,” she says. The couple earn their living from seasonal sales of pigeons and the casual buy and sell at the local scrap market. What was supposed to be a marital chore, soon became the reason for them to bond better. They became a team; Parveen regularly joined her husband in his pigeon rearing.
Husband’s support
“I learned the nuances of pigeon-care from my husband. He was my mentor, teaching me the tricks, calls,whistles and shrieks. His encouragement fuelled my doused passion,” Parveen says.Nosey neighbours, however, were a hitch. Since the sport needs pigeon handlers to be agile, climbing rooftops and making loud calls, they found it odd that Parveen should partake in an endeavour mostly done by men. “What others say does not bother me because my family is with me. Women are discouraged from pursuing kabootarbaazi because they are told that it is a man’s job. It is not something anyone can do. The most important thing is your family’s support,”says Parveen.
Generational sport
Parveen has by now been a kabootarbaaz with her husband for more than 20 years. She also approached Ustad Mohammad Mohsin, who has been a kabootarbaaz for the past 50 years, for formal training. He started to train Parveen during the pandemic, initially through video sessions; Parveen was taught different calls and different techniques to guide the pigeons. “This is a very old sport from the time of the Mughals who used this way of communication to reach letters to the aristocracy. The techniques we teach are also passed down generations,” shares the Ustad.
What is now known as kabootarbaazi began almost 3,000 years ago in Egypt and found patronage in Mughal courts. Emperor Babur in his memoir, Tuzk-e-Babri, makes numerous references to the sport. The sport reached its zenith under Akbar. Abu’l-Fazl, Akbar’s court chronicler, writes in detail in A’in-i-Akbari about the king’s favourite pastime of pigeon keeping. The book also notes that Akbar’s court reared more than 20,000 pigeons, 500 of them were the king’s select. The sport reached Delhi when Shah Jahan shifted the capital from Agra to Shahjahanabad in 1649 AD. The sport grew so popular that late 18th century poet and author Seyyed Mohammad Musavi wrote a beginner’s guide on training pigeons called the Kabootar Nama. This is also the oldest manuscript written in the Persian language on pigeon training.
Test of time
Kabootarbazi has stood the test of time but its winged players now face the silent threat of air pollution. Birds are exposed to more airborne particles, specifically particulate matter, than humans. The winter smog adversely affects them—their eyelids stick together; feathers fall off due to skin infections; they experience difficulty in breathing. “There is a newfound ailment, unknown to pigeon enthusiasts, induced by pollution. Pigeons stop eating, become lethargic and finally die. This was not a challenge we faced before. With the increased pollution and bad air, our birds are at risk,” the Ustad laments.But there is no risk to Parveen’s fame as perhaps Delhi’s only woman kabootarbaz. The birds gave wings to her dreams. “Now this basti is known because of me. People come here to witness ‘bhabiji’s game’,” she says with pride, releasing her pigeons from the coop, for a round of kabootarbaazi, eagerly awaited by spectators who have come from Jafrabad.