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Look up from any Taj Ganj roof terrace around 4pm, when the sun is low and the city's bulbous onion domes and minarets glow pale orange, and you'll see a side of local life of which very few tourists are even aware. Pigeons, or kabootas , wheel above clusters of men and boys staring skywards from their flat rooftops, shouting, whistling and waving sticks at the birds. Agra's pigeon fanciers, known as kaboota baz , don't race their pigeons, but fly them in flocks, controlling them with a code of high-pitched whistles and calls that are as much a feature of Muslim districts like Taj Ganj as the muezzin 's call to prayer. The waving of sticks is supposed to keep the lazier pigeons in the air, although a couple of sleepy specimens can usually be spotted hiding on nearby satellite dishes, waiting for their owners to scatter soaked grain for them to feed on. When this happens, the rest of the flock drops back to ground in a cloud, and pecks around the roof of their coop, or kaboota kanna , for the grain. This five- or ten-minute cycle is then repeated for an hour or so until the pigeons have been well exercised.

Pigeon fancying is an established tradition in Agra, and cities such as Old Delhi and Lucknow, where there are sizeable Muslim communities (Hindus rarely indulge in the sport). Its techniques were set down by Akbar's poet laureate, Abu'l Fazl, for the Moghul court who considered it a noble pastime, and to this day men and boys across Urdu-speaking parts of India still take their kaboota flying very seriously. Thoroughbred birds change hands for more than Rs5000, a fortune considering the average income of most kaboota baz . Owning a large flock brings with it a certain cachet, and the coveted title of Barra Kaboota Baz , literally "Big Pigeon Fancier". Once a man is deemed to have mastered the plethora of tricks and subtleties of this ancient sport, he may even be known among his peers as a Khalifa , or "Great Master". Only Khalifas can direct their flocks in perfect parabolic curves, or single files across the sky, or command them to encircle a neighbours' flock and drive it to ground.

Four or five flocks fly above Taj Ganj each day. You can watch them from your guesthouse rooftop, but if you'd like to get closer to the action, ask around for an introduction to a kaboota baz - the manager of the Shah Jahan Lodge on South Gate can arrange for you to meet his neighbour, Danesh Khan, a Barra Kaboota Baz who keeps his birds on an adjacent roof.