Living With Birds

Dr. Asad Rahmani’s love for birds turns every wetland of Kashmir into a story of wonder, patience, and devotion.

By Khursheed Dar

When the sky bends over Wular, holding “Living with Birds in Your Hands” is like holding a fragment of that sky itself. To turn its pages is to feel feathers brushing your cheek, to hear the whisper of wings over frozen lakes, to sense the silent grief of wetlands slowly shrinking. Dr. Asad Rahmani, one of India’s foremost ornithologists, has written more than a book—he has penned a love letter to life itself. And in that letter, Kashmir is not merely a backdrop; it is a living, breathing character—its lakes, reeds, and migratory guests shimmering like secrets in the morning mist.

When winter folds the valley in white silence, when chinars stand leafless like prophets in waiting, the sky begins to fill. They come—bar-headed geese, brahminy ducks, mallards, pintails, gadwalls. They arrive not in twos or threes, but in thousands, carrying exhaustion in their veins and snow in their bones. For centuries, these birds have flown across mountains and deserts to reach the soft lap of Hokersar, the vast mirror of Wular, the still waters of Dal. To most of us, their arrival is a passing wonder. Dr. Rahmani counts more than numbers. He listens. He waits. He writes as if his own heartbeat is stitched to their migration, and in his words, Kashmir’s lakes open themselves, revealing aching beauty and fragile wounds.

Rahmani’s passion is not that of a detached scholar—it is a lover’s devotion. In every chapter, you feel him kneeling at the water’s edge, watching flocks rise in sudden unison, as though the sky itself had cracked open. He takes us into wetlands where silence is stitched with wingbeats, where the world feels both eternal and fleeting. His stories are about birds, yes, but also about patience, endurance, and love lived fiercely over decades. In Karera, under the searing Madhya Pradesh sun, he waited days beneath a tree to glimpse the Great Indian Bustard. In Assam, he traced the fading footprints of the Bengal Florican. In Kashmir, he stood among geese and cranes, witnesses to their faith in the valley, their fragile trust in human care.

It is impossible not to be moved by his dedication. While governments dismissed grasslands as “wastelands,” Dr. Rahmani saw treasure houses of life. While poachers pulled the trigger, he raised his pen, his voice, his very existence in protest. When vultures fell from the sky, poisoned by diclofenac, he traced the cause and fought to save them. These acts go beyond research—they are acts of defiance, of love sharpened into action.

What makes Living with Birds extraordinary is its tone. It is not a dry chronicle of sightings; it breathes, trembles, aches. When he describes Kashmir’s wetlands, you feel their beauty but also their silence, shrinking under neglect, choking with plastic, starved of care. His voice is never angry—it is urgent, imploring. Not a shout, but a prayer.

And yet, even amid sorrow, there is wonder. After fifty years of fieldwork, Rahmani still marvels at a single bird lifting into the sky, love married to patience. Kashmir owes much to men like him. Without his voice, how many would know that Hokersar is more than a swamp but a sanctuary of dreams? How many would see Wular not just as a lake but as a mirror holding half the world’s skies? How many would recognize that Dal, beyond its houseboats and postcards, is a resting ground for travelers who have flown thousands of miles?

The book brims with moments that stop the breath—the hush of dawn over Wular, fog curling above the water while geese glide like apparitions; the sudden crack of wings as a thousand pintails rise together, shattering morning silence; the lonely call of a heron at dusk, echoing against snow-clad mountains. Rahmani writes these moments not as an outsider, but as someone who belongs, who has chosen to live inside their fragile beauty.

And perhaps that is his greatest gift: he makes us belong too. We are not mere spectators. He draws us into a covenant, makes us feel responsible—not only for the birds, but for the skies, the lakes, the reeds, the unseen threads that bind life together. His life is not built for applause. He has mentored generations, built institutions, yet at his core remains the boy who once waited by a pond to watch a duck, and who never let that wonder die.

Living with Birds is not just memoir—it is a hymn. A hymn to beauty, fragility, resilience. It reminds us that birds belong to the sky, yet somehow the sky belongs to them. And if we lose them, we do not lose a species—we lose a fragment of the world’s soul.

Dr. Asad Rahmani has given more than a book. He has given a way of seeing, a way of living, a way of belonging. His love is fierce, his discipline tender, his dedication unyielding. He shows us that one life, lived with devotion, can keep the skies alive, the lakes breathing, hope from vanishing.

In Kashmir, when the birds arrive each winter, they do not know his name. But perhaps, in the quiet rhythm of life, they sense his love. They feel it in the reeds, the waters, the safety they still find here. In that silence, in that protection, Dr. Rahmani’s devotion soars as high as the migratory wings above him—a testament that love, patience, and courage can keep a fragment of the sky forever intact.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of this Magazine. The author can be reached at [email protected]