Kali Rani’s Keeper

Falconry was something he had inherited from his Afghan ancestors for whom it was a royal sport. Osman was a descendant of the erstwhile emperor of Afghanistan,Amir Dost Mohamed Khan. When the British exiled the family to India,they were sent to Dehradun where they set up home. In their new home,the family kept up their old passion for falconry,trapping and training falcons,hawks and eagles. Once a bird was trapped,it was always kept hooded,trained and then taken out for hunting. In fact,Osman himself made the gloves and hoods needed for falconry.

Falconry is an ancient hunting tradition,which originated in Central Asia thousands of years ago. Primarily practised as a means of procuring food with the help of trained raptors or birds of prey,it spread to many parts of the world and developed over the years as a traditional as well as royal sport in the Indian subcontinent.

Falconers have made important contributions to the understanding of the biology and ecology of birds of prey and today,falconry,recognised as an “intangible cultural heritage”,is also being used as a resource for conservation of birds of prey and their habitats. As Osman once wrote: “In the beginning,falconry was perhaps primarily a means of providing man his daily food; today,it survives as an unparalleled sport which demands of its devotees,great skill,endurance and patience.”

It is a tough art. The last falcon Osman kept was a ‘Shahin’ peregrine falcon called Kali Rani who made a brief appearance in the television serial The Jewel in the Crown. She was with him for 16 years. After the death of his father,his “closest companion”,Osman,who had a day job as a geophysicist at the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC),never kept a falcon. “Where is the sport,where is the company?” he would often say.

After he stopped keeping falcons,he kept up his link with falconry through his writings. A keen naturalist,his autobiographical account,Falconry in the Land of the Sun: Memoirs of an Afghan Falconer,and other books — Musings of an Afghan Falconer and Hunters of the Air — are illuminating accounts of birds of prey. His many articles on falconry and raptors published in magazines and journals,including the journals of the Bombay Natural History Society and the Wildlife Preservation Society,are both educative and enjoyable.

While he may have spent hours in solitude observing birds in the wild,Osman was very much a people’s person,holding long conversations with friends,peppered with phrases in Hindustani,Persian and Pashto. He always had a ready idiom and if anyone spoke a harsh word to him,he answered that with: jawab-e-jaahila khaamosheest (silence is the best answer to an uncouth person).

His wife Zulekha’s death three years ago ended a long partnership and while he missed her deeply,he kept himself busy taking care of his dogs,Harriet,Scully and Hope,studying birds and writing — his book on Mussoorie’s Cloud End is in the process of being published.

But it’s not just through his books on falconry and the region that Osman and his family’s contribution survives. The family’s legacy lives on in Dehradun in other ways too. It was Osman’s family that originally brought basmati rice seeds from Afghanistan and together with the Raja of Tehri,cultivated it experimentally in the Doon valley. The flavour of home that the Afghans brought with them is now an integral part of Dehradun’s identity.