Teetar wins Color Television

Haroon Rashid

BBC Urdu

Publishing Date: Monday, June 23 2003

There was a contest in a Peshawar School between Black Teetars (Partridges) of who will chirp the most number of times. Normallly, people passing by a school will be astonished to listen to partridges singing instead of Students memorising their lessons. But on this occasion, it was a normal event because almost everybody here was a competitor. These people had already been part of numerous competitions like this before.

Bird lovers were sitting on all four corners of the school playground with their birds and cages before them. In the middle were the numerous referees. Throughout the event, both the owners of the birds and the referees could be seen counting with vigour.

According to organizers, the event started from 9 in the morning till 6 in the evening. Nine hours can be considered a very lengthy time for the poor birds but there were different stages in which the birds had to compete. Competitors from as far as Bakhar, Okara, Dera Ismail Khan and even Mianwali came to Peshawar. All in all, there were 450 birds in the competition.

In the first knockout round, the birds were given a ten minute time. This knockout round was meant to filter out those birds which were not in a mood to sing today.

In the second round, the birds were given five minutes. Majority of the birds were filtered out as well in this round with only 155 birds qualifying for the third and final round out of the total of 450 birds.

In the final round, the first place winner was a person from Kohat with a Sindhi Teetar who chirped a total of 249 times. He was given a trophy and a 14 inch color television.

The second place winner was a Teetar from Bannu, who chirped a total of 237 times. The owner was given a trophy and a china-made bicycle.

The third place winner was a Teetar from Swat. The owner was given a VCD Player. When asked for comments, the owner replied that he was very happy to receive the VCD Player and now he will be able to watch 'Qalandri' movies.

The organizer of the event who is also president of Peshawar Black Teetar Association; Muhammad Ali Akhunzada was asked why the event was organized in such sweltering heat as it could prove deadly for the birds. He replied that these birds are used to this weather and normally this is the time that these birds sing the most number of times. He also said that this event has been held annually without any hinderence and without any sponsorship from the government of Pakistan.

Muhammad Ali also mentioned that the objective behind this event was to encourage healthy activities in society. He said that this hobby of bird keepingn was a healthy hobby and it keeps people away from many evils including drugs.

The owner of the Teetar who came second place; Muhammad Ali hailing from Bannu, when approached for comments replied that he spent 4-5 hours daily taking care of his Teetar. He said that he would take it for a walk in the fields and give it Almonds etc. for food.

There was even a 75 year old contestant from Abbottabad who had come to participate. When asked for comments he replied that he has hobby of bird keeping since 50 years when even his beard had not come on his face. He said that it is an expensive but interesting hobby. He also said that good birds are very hard to find but once you get hold of them, you take a lot of care of them.

Bird keeping is a very ancient hobby. To encourage this hobby, organisations regularly schedule events and competitions just like this. According to environmentalists, such events not only help in preservation of these birds but in this hobby, thousands if not millions of birds are kept healthy and well fed by the people.

But some Teetar owners said that many people do not know how to take proper care of their birds. For example they mentioned that some birds are given Ghee as food to make them strong and healthy but the birds die soon after eating the Ghee.