Eid Mubarak!

It was just Eid. Not Eid ul-Fitr, Eid ul-Adha. The one with the slaughter.

Days before Eid, there were suddenly thousands of cows on the road. Pulling eight-year old boys into traffic, bucking against the stick used to herd them, tied to trees, looking mournful and muddy. And sometimes, once in a great while, there would be a sparkly cow, doused in glitter, adorned with tinsel, sashaying up and down the dusty avenues. As a fan of general livestock, I was in two minds about these processions of fancified bovines (and the occasionally herd of eight or nine goats on a string). On the one hand, how exciting! Pretty cows! On the other hand, I knew what awaited them come Eid. A slit throat and an undignified disembowelment, followed by apportionment to hordes of impoverished women with trick-or-treat satchels, gathering their meat where they may.

Modern tradition states that the families that can afford a cow will have it slaughtered on Eid: 1/3 goes to the family (the best bits), 1/3 goes to distant relations, and 1/3 goes to the poor. In the villages, it's pretty clear who gets the last third ad which families are responsible for giving it, but in the disparate life in the city, there are so many poor people unaffiliated with richer families, so they go around and collect their share from whomever they can. The slaughter happens in the street, followed by immediately skinning and disembowelment.

I wandered around Old Dhaka on Eid, responding to the million "How are you?!"s and "Your country?!"s, my eyes firmly to the ground which was, literally, awash with blood. The gutters ran red, the cobbles directed blood spills in rivulets across the narrow alley paths. I saw cows in various stages of slaughter: sparkly and fighting against the harness as it was led to the imam, hooves bound, frantic as the large knife approached, just after, as the imam gave way to the butcher, and in various bits along the road. Skins were piled fifty deep along the road; hooves reached from the laps of the passengers in rickshaws, the ankle bones still swiveling with the motion of the bicycle on cobbles; carts of collected jaw bones brandished not quite clean skulls, and beggars tugged at the last bits of intestines, floating down the bloody gullies at the edge of the street.

Interestingly, I didn't find myself overly disturbed by any of the process other than the danger of getting blood on the hem of my jeans or smacked in the head by a passing joint of beef.

Related Links:
What up with the two Eids?