agra its a battle for pigeons a traditional sport that was banned for long and restored in 2004 these days the kulkulbaaz those to train pigeons and then engage them in the flight competition are bracing for the big contest kabootarbazi thousands of pigeons will block out the weak winter sun as this sixday contest begins on december 25 soaring to the skies in response to calls from their masters more than 10000 pigeons are being trained at eight different locations by 18 groups of khalifas master trainers the trainers come from places far and near and belong to different faiths vineet ustad a christian does not mind that this year the contest begins on christmas day his worship is done at the latenight ceremony and he expects to be bright and early at the kabootarbazi event he belongs to the firozabad tradition of kabootarbazi he explains that the competition begins when the khalifas order their birds to join other groups in the air after a few rounds of flight they start instructing their birds to fly in different directions while the besttrained birds follow instructions and get all the directions right the less trained ones get confused and end up with rival groups of pigeons after several rounds the team that catches the maximum pigeons wins as the pigeons take to the skies their masters direct them with the sound of whistling or a cacophonous burst of hurr hurr or aao aao to tell between pigeons of the different teams their wings might sometimes be coloured green or red a khalifa wins if he starts with 200 pigeons and ends up with 250 luring 50 birds from competitors the venue of the contest is changed each day so that the birds dont have the advantage of recognising the lofts in which they were raised vineet ustad explains the contests are sites where people gather across class and religion near the venue one will see vast numbers of parked cycles there are also a number of cars christians muslims hindus they have all been training pigeons for these contests and will arrive to direct the competing birds the love of kabootarbazi will overpower the fire of communalism says dinesh chand chaudhary ustad president of the agra kabootarbazi association he is also heading the team that is organising the sixday event which will begin at kuberpur 20 km from agra chaudhary a hindu learnt how to train the pigeons from nannu khan his muslim teacher these days he is training a dozen khalifas among his students are hindus muslims and christians the event this year will be spread out across three venues kuberpur near the yamuna expressway and at 100 futa road kabootarbazi used to be a widespread sport in mughal times a gentle contest it was a favourite pastime of many nawabs emperor akbar was fascinated with it in 2004 the sport was revived by the then district magistrate after a ban that lasted several years