Pakistan Today

Airborne Warriors

It all started when the great grandfather of the Butt family fell in love with a stout bodied, short necked, fluffy bird, from the family of Columbidae, most commonly known as pigeon. Pigeons who, in their natural habitat, live in flimsy nests made of sticks and other debris, found their rather sturdy home at Butt’s place where he furnishes their living with hale and hearty diet and importantly love, for healthy parents pave way for healthy squabs, who grow up to be warriors for the pigeon flying competitions, known as Kabootar Bazi.
Kabootar Bazi is now acclaimed all over the world and pigeons of different creeds and kinds are traded across countries. Kabootar Bazi tests the pigeons’ stamina and endurance and the pigeon with the longest flight wins the competition. The organisers arrange for an impartial, high-priced Qazi (judge) for keeping the competition transparent.
The Qazi inspects the pigeons for any steroids and after the prize money is decided, the pigeons take their flight. As long as the pigeons fly, their owners stay on their roofs and a festive atmosphere is created. Contenders and guests feast as their warriors fly high with their owners’ hopes.
The competition has set rules that each contender must follow: the pigeon should be prominently marked, any contender that creates fuss will be dismissed from the tournament, every contender must arrange for the Qazi whose decision will be final etc Such an event titled “Pehla Lahore Aswaj Cup” was organised by Akhlaq Ahmed Khan in May 2010 in which a total of 175 pigeons competed. Each contender had to offer 7 pigeons and 25 contenders participated.
Butt family in the same competition also put the seven of their best pigeons to task and ended up winning the second prize of Rs 70,000. Seven brothers residing at the heart of Lahore, the inner city, headed by their eldest brother Sohail Butt Khalifa, others including Zahid alias Pomi Butt and Yasir alias Billu Butt, have developed a strange fetish for pigeons. Though a well established niswar business at the railway station serves the bread’s purpose well but their love for pigeons has turned them to be professional pigeon wizards.
Each brother keeps an average of 600 pigeons which incur a monthly expense of Rs 15,000 to 20,000. The ordinary pigeons feed on bajra (pearl millet) and wheat grains. These are the pigeons which are meant only to ‘give company to the warriors’, as Sohail calls it. Cashew nuts, desi ghee, milk, and almonds along with the ordinary pigeon food are fed to the pigeons meant for the play.
The pigeon that is prepared for the competition is fed almost 8 almonds a day along with other special food requirements, for two consecutive months. Rs 20,000 to 25,000 are invested on each pigeon that is prepared for the flying completion.
Sohail Butt talking to Pakistan Today said, “My grandfather taught the art of pigeon flying to my father, my father to me and I am determined to carry this art forward to my children. It is a heritage, a legacy that we need to follow and pass on.” Sohail says, “We play for the love of the art and not as a gamble.
The pigeons fly for glory and win us amounts that a layman may account as bad earned money from gamble. But we do not keep that money with us or depend to it to feed our families. The money is spent for recreation of the viewers and friends who share the love for the pigeons and the art.”

Exit mobile version