Pigeon flying, kabootarbazi, is an old urban pastime in Punjab, particularly at Amritsar, Lahore and the qasba towns, in which flocks are kept on roofs, flown in competition, and judged on endurance or on how many of a rival's birds are drawn away.
It has its own vocabulary, its own breeds, its own betting and its own reputation as a way for a young man to waste his life, which is the standard parental view and appears in the literature.
In Punjabi, kabootarbazi also became the word for illegal emigration, and a travel agent arranging an irregular route is a kabootarbaz. The metaphor is exact: birds sent up and not all of them coming back.
Kite flying at Basant was the other roof sport and is now restricted or banned on both sides of the border because of synthetic and glass-coated line.
Both are urban, both are male, both are about the sky above a dense old city, and both are declining.
The word kabootarbazi now appears in Indian court judgments about human trafficking, which is a strange fate for a pigeon-flying term.
Kabootarbazi, pigeon flying, is a trade and a competition in the old cities on both sides, with birds bred for endurance and for the distance they will fly and return.
Kite flying at Basant is the other rooftop sport, and the two share the same skyline and the same rooftops and the same men.
Both are declining, and both are periodically restricted: the kite string for the injuries it causes and the pigeon flying for the gambling attached to it.