When the brothers first took an injured kite to a bird hospital, they were turned away because it was a “non-veg bird,” and decided to treat it themselves. They explain how meat-tossing (feeding birds) earns sabab (religious credit); how their mother told them stories as children of Billi Baba (a cat saint) and a giddhon ki mazhar (a vulture shrine). “One shouldn’t differentiate between all that breathes,” one of the brothers says.

So compassionate are they, one says: “This male kite has an ‘egg indentation’ in his belly, from keeping their eggs warm…Release him fast because his chicks will be waiting in the nest.” The opening shots show the filth that India’s capital lives in, moving to mountains of garbage, open sewers, toxic foam floating on the Yamuna river, with foraging pigs, cows, goats, turtles, rats, flies, mosquitoes and more. We are reminded how kites eat rats and help keep our cities clean. “I don’t save kites, the kites save us,” one of the brothers says. 

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The survival of the kites is a metaphor, linked to the survival of the Muslim minority in India’s toxic, right-wing atmosphere. All around the brothers, Muslim homes and shops are being burnt, mosques destroyed and gruesome religious riots continue. Yet, the brothers are stoic about the horrors, even philosophical. Consumed by their obsession for healing birds, the brothers, who run a soap dispenser business, scarcely have time to join the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protests, opposing the move to make Muslims refugees in their own country. “Imagine, a spelling mistake is making us refugees” one brother says, referring to his father’s HSC certificate. “Now it is not just hatred, but disgust,” Nadeem adds. “By calling us [Muslims] termites and rats, they have made it about hygiene.” 
“Will you go to Pakistan or Bangladesh?” the wife asks matter-of-factly. The film is elevated by the brothers’ exquisite, everyday poetry on the kites: the “sust-sa til aasman mein,” (lazy dot-in-the-sky), or “You don’t care for things because they share the same country, religion or politics. Life itself is kinship. We’re all a community of air,” Saud says. 

After the New York Times wrote about them, their NGO Wildlife Rescue is able to get some funding; even as they expand to terrace cages, Nadeem goes to the Lees McRae College in the US to study international bird rescue further, while Saud manages the hospital alone. 

The direction is absolutely assured, with top notch tech credits. German cinematographer Ben Bernhard favours slow pans that reveal a lot, aided by Riju Das and Saumyanand Sahi. Editor Charlotte Munch Bengtsen (Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing) and co-editor Vedant Joshi (The Disciple) do a superb job intercutting parallel metaphors, yet playful. Niladri Shekhar Roy’s sound design and Roger Goula’s music greatly enhance the film.

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist. 
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com