Hawaizaade: Women Break Barriers, Showing Passion Has No Age

A professional motor racer meets a Kabootarbaazi expert and here’s what went down!

A professional racer meets a Kabootarbaazi champ in Delhi’s Jama Masjid.

(Photo: Mukul Bhandari)

Sure, the month-long festivities of Ramzan just ended, but we have a story to tell, set around Ramzan and the city of stories – Old Delhi.

Every proverb starts to feel redundant, but comes from a long-forgotten starting point. Hawaizaade is a tale of two women, one jo hawaa se baatein karti hai
and the other jo udti chidiya ke pankh gin leti hai.

Sarah Kashyap is an urban rally racer, and the first woman to complete India's toughest rally, Raid-de-Himalayas. How did she overcome the roadblocks and teach herself through her journey? Having tried her hand at over 40 jobs, Sarah turned into a pro-rally racer at the age of 30, and took first position in races like Desert Storm and the SJOBA sub-Himalayan rally.

Reviving an Old Art

Set up by emperor Shah Jahan, Delhi’s old name is Shahjahaanabad. The Mughals used to pay people to practice Kabootarbaazi so the trained pigeons could be used to send messages quickly in times of emergency.

Gradually, Kabootarbaazi become a sport – but now, it’s dying.

Just like moto-racing and a lot of other things, this sport too was male-dominated, and women were never allowed to practice pigeon racing, even until very recently.

At the age of 42, an orthodox Shaina Parveen, fondly called bhabhi ji, accepted the challenge from one of the established pigeon racers, and won comprehensively to become India's first female pigeon racer.

She ended up being called dhaakad bhabhi ji by everybody in the circle.

When Worlds Collide

In her quest to explore Old Delhi, Sarah meets bhabhi ji at Jama masjid, and gets invited home to witness the soft race. They both end up sharing their love for their passions with each other.

Both women broke barriers and let themselves fly loose, showing us passion that and love have no age.