Wingless Birds/10: Kabootarbaz (Pigeon Fancier) Poem by Asit Kumar Sanyal

He was a poor man of my village
And loved 3000 years old Egyptian sport
The 'pigeon fancying' or 'kabootarbazi'
He was not having pigeon in hundreds
Iike Hafiz Mian or Deen Badsah
But had 20 plus pigeon always
in his specially built
wood and wire mesh cages
with pigeon-holes for roosting
But no foreign breed, only Indian
Including a deshi lotan kabootar.
He was expert in kabootarbazi
And could recognise like Dennis Bhai
the breed of a passing-by pigeon
By just examining it's droppings
I spent several hours with him
in my school days
Learning the tricks of pigeon flying.
Once he found two unknown pigeons
of better qualities... with his own birds
Cought one after a struggle of four hours
Gave it to his daughter to hold
and looked for another
but failed to catch that one
on return he saw no pigeon in her hand
she was weeping
he became angry... slapped her
she fell down, became unconscious.
But for the same reason
Palace girl Meher-un-Nissa came in light
Prince Salim fell in love with her
and married her later
She became world famous as Nur-Jahan.
The poor girl was 'Anarkali'
She died after few months from that incident
And her father left KabootarbazI for ever.