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        The Chennai pigeon racing fraternity has been having its hands full ever since the start of the racing season this December. With three races already over and a host of others lined up, the four racing clubs in Chennai have become busier than ever as they test their brace of pigeons, numbering around 1200, on previously unchartered territory.

        Chennai Pigeon Racing Society president K Palaniappan says,'Initially there was just one club, now with the increase in members, the community has grown and the number of races held has also increased. We have been also experimenting in the recent past with the distance traversed by the birds.'

        In the past, Nagpur, Chittur, Kanyakumari and Nagercoil were the prime spots for releasing homers (pigeons trained to return home), now outlandish places like Vinukonda, Miraliyabu, Kasipet are being chosen. For the uninitiated, there are long distance and short distance races held for which homers with different bloodlines are selected for their speed and stamina. Trainers and breeder take the pigeons to the starting point by hiring trailers or other vechiles with huge storage space to accommodate their charges and their crates. No matter where the starting point of the race, the destination will have to be Chennai. The very name Homers, arises from the fact that the pigeons have a strong attachment to their homes I.e the places they are bred in and try to come back as soon as possible. 'For races from Nagpur, an entire train compartment has to be booked to transport the pigeons as the guard van cannot accommodate hundreds of crates,' says Palaniappan.

        'One of my birds came back to me one whole year after a race from Nagpur. Their strong homing instinct has baffled many a scientist, who has tried to explain it with theories like their sensitivity to the earth's electro magnetic field. Nothing, however, has been proved conclusively to explain the racing pigeons uncanny ability to come back home,' says Umapathy, a racing enthusiast.

        This season's first race from Vinukonda to Chennai saw as many as 363 birds competing. Apart from the usual racing categories, an invention of the Chennaites known as the banded ring race has been introduced this year. 'In this race all our members will be given 10 rings for tagging their homers and the person with the largest number of birds coming home withing the scheduled time wins,' says Palaniappan.

        Dr Noel Kannan, who left a lucrative practice abroad to pursue his passion full-time, says that the next two months will see the best of each member's collection taking to the skies in swift flight. 'We have bloodlines (racing breeds that have been bred in Europe, like the Indian kanni) like Devriendt, Hofken, Meuleman and Janssen in our collection. But as none of us breed pigeons extensively unlike our fellow enthusiasts in Nagercoil or Kanyakumari, the only means of replenishing stock for most of us after the loss of a few pigeons in every race is to buy them. When we import birds we can only breed them as when released they will make an attempt to fly back to the country they were born in or die on the way due to exhaustion, bird hits or inadaptability.'

        On an average as many as 1200 birds are released during the racing season and most competitors release some where between 40 to 70 birds a race. For people like Dr Kannan, who has the largest stock of around 260 pigeons, the 10 to 20 per cent loss of birds incurred during each race can be easily glossed over. But for others with smaller lofts, the sport might prove to be less adventurous with the need for prudence, he says.

        Thirumugam, whose bird came in first in the Young Bird Racing Championship, feels that the sport is not getting the attention that it deserves. Though the Madras Pigeon Racing Club has been in existence for over a century, the government has not in anyway encouraged the sport. The racing enthusiasts have to shell out from their own pockets at every turn. With one homer carrying the Janssen blood strain costing a minimum of Rs 3,500 (there is all the possibility of the price shooting up to Rs 15,000 and more for every race won) owning a decent stock of 150 to 170 birds is something that can be done only by enthusiasts with well-lined purses.