The interviews and writing of this story were originally done in March 2022.

In the 90s, when Delhi-based brothers Nadeem and Mohammad Saud were in their late teens, they came across an injured kite. The bird was entangled in a manjha, and lay on the side of the road.

This was the first time that the duo saw how birds fall prey to injuries and even death due to excessive kite flying. Manjhas, which are synthetic kite strings coated in metal or glass, can be fatal to birds flying in the sky — they can lose their wings, leaving them permanently grounded.

Nadeem says that after being injured, many of these birds end up in the gutters or on the roadside, where they are run over by vehicles or bleed to death. Otherwise, the trauma of being unable to fly is soon followed by death.

Despite the fact that Chinese manjhas were banned by the government in 2017, conservationists end up rescuing thousands of birds from their clutches every year.

When the brothers came across the injured kite, they picked it up and rushed to the hospital. But they were met with refusal no matter where they went, recalls Nadeem, now 44. “We knocked on the doors of several veterinary clinics. They told us, ‘We do not treat carnivorous birds’,” he tells The Better India.

Unable to find a solution, the brothers returned the bird to the spot where they found it. But since then, they have come a long way. From their basement, they run a makeshift veterinary operation centre for injured and maimed birds, helping save thousands of birds to date.

Navigating a death trap

After their first encounter with the kite, Nadeem and Saud spent the next few years picking up other injured birds and placing them in safe places that will prevent them from being run over or choking in a gutter. But the fate of these birds would remain unknown. “We kept looking for help, but couldn’t find any,” Nadeem says.

In 2003, the siblings found another kite in a parking lot. This time, they decided to take a different approach. “We took it........

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