The Pigeon Keeper Of Yamuna Khader

In the narrow lanes of Yamuna Khadar, where life moves between daily wages and quiet resilience, 17 year old Vikas has built a world of his own, one that flutters with wings and coos softly at dawn.

The son of nursery workers, Vikas grew up watching his parents toil through long hours to keep the household running. Financial constraints meant that opportunities, especially education, were limited. His father, Nanku, speaks of this with a mix of regret and pride. “We could not provide our children with proper education because of our situation,” he says, “but my son has found his own path. He does this for passion, not for business.”

That passion takes flight in the form of 21 to 22 pigeons, each carefully raised and cherished. Their prices range from ₹200 to ₹4,000, with his most prized bird once costing ₹7,000. For a family living hand to mouth, such amounts might seem extravagant. Yet Vikas never asks his parents for money. Instead, he earns it himself through manual labour, saving patiently until he can afford another bird to add to his growing flock.

For Vikas, pigeon keeping is not a hobby, it is devotion. He spends hours tending to them, ensuring their shelter is clean, their food measured, and their health monitored. His bond with the birds runs deep. He can tell when one is unwell simply by observing its behaviour, the way it perches, the rhythm of its cooing, or the stillness in its usually restless wings. Once he senses something is wrong, he confirms it carefully and arranges medicine for them, often dipping again into his modest savings.

In a place where dreams are often grounded by circumstance, Vikas’s pigeons rise as symbols of quiet determination. They represent not just his love for birds, but his refusal to let hardship clip his wings.

For this young boy from Yamuna Khadar, passion is not measured in profit; it is measured in care, commitment, and the soft beating of wings against an open sky.