Wings Of Dove In Mumbai

Opposite the Hamidiya mosque in Pydhonie, Mumbai, four flights of stairs above an orderly row of century-old grocery stores, oil vendors and umbrella sellers, the Nachij family’s pigeons take shelter from the blazing sun in bookcases. We appear at their doorstep without warning in late September, and Yusuf Nachij, the pigeon owner, is not home. His brother Shafi invites us to haul ourselves up into their house and on to their balcony, where the family pigeons perch, some in airy cages, others in wooden boxes with sliding glass fronts, left partially open. Here they coexist—we counted six of varying sizes and hues—with potted plants, clotheslines, a Tata Sky dish, as well as their human family, and settle unperturbed into the hands of a visiting uncle to pose for the camera, clearly acclimatized to human eccentricity. “It’s an enthusiasm of my brother’s,” Shafi explains to us. He uses the Urdu word “shauq”. “Our father and grandfather used to keep pigeons too.”

For many Mumbaikars, grateful for the existence of pigeon-proofing at home and fibreglass at work, pigeon-shauq is inexplicable. Having thrived in urban India in recent years, the rock pigeon is one of the few species which can compete with the city’s human population for ubiquity. Long after sparrows and mynahs have given up trying to survive electromagnetic waves, pollution and the disappearance of trees, pigeons have peaceably gone about the business of surviving and multiplying. “In homes they’re considered pests, while commercial properties mostly want to get rid of them for aesthetic reasons,” explains Joshua Rao, general manager, marketing, of Mumbai-headquartered Pest Control (India) Pvt. Ltd. Rao estimates the firm’s bird-proofing business at around Rs.10 crore annually, with demand more or less constant over the last five years. To pigeons, air conditioners are vents from which to bring forth fledglings that will achieve adulthood in 30 days. High-rises are roosts whose height prevents possible predators, like cats, from accessing their nests. Most of all, Mumbai’s humans have made generous neighbours. “The main reason for pigeons thriving here is that food and breeding areas are abundant,” says Asad Rahmani, director, Bombay Natural History Society. “There is no scarcity of nesting sites for them, and they are not afraid of human beings. Pigeons flock to cities all over the world. You find great hordes of them in Delhi, in London, in Leningrad. They are never found in big numbers in nature, but in human habitats, they don’t have many predators.”