It’s a cow thing!

Choosing a sacrificial animal that comes up to your kid’s expectations and is not heavy on your purse is a difficult undertaking. But even when you are past that ordeal, your test of nerves may not end. This is what happened with us last year.

After we were lucky to strike a deal for a cow with a turban-wearing, hukkah-carrying old man, the next step was even trickier -- how to make the cow get on the pick-up van.

The cow -- a vehra (male cow in vernacular) -- was in no mood to be hauled up and pushed inside the van. Maybe, it was angry because it was parting with its fellow cows or because we didn’t let it finish its meal, it was furious for being disturbed by the alien species. In short, the cow was adamant and simply refused to move an inch.

But we were equally determined because we could see many cows around us boarding pick-up vans without offering any resistance. "If they can, we can too," was our line of argument. What happened next made a huge dent into our resolve.

Things went from bad to worse when a fellow vendor, looking at the plight of the old vendor and our helplessness, tried to offer some help by pushing the vehra from behind. The vehra, taking serious offence, hit that gentleman with its rear leg. Where it hit the vendor we don’t know but the poor man went up before he came down, landing on the rough surface with a thud. He was surely crying with pain.

To our utter shock, the vehra proved itself to be a great opportunist and strategist. In a matter of seconds, we were watching it galloping away into the multitudes of its fellow community.

P.S.: After a few hours we were finally able to get hold of the animal and bring it home but that’s another story.

-- Ather Naqvi

The man of the moment aka kasai

Last year, after offering my Eid prayers, I was desperately waiting for the butcher to come and make our Bakra Eid worth savouring. We, four brothers and a cousin, were all strolling at the gate of our house to welcome ‘the man of the moment’ (butcher), but the wait was stretching beyond our patience.

The wait turned into desperation after two hours and it was our younger brother who had to face our collective wrath -- after all, he was tasked with hiring the butcher. "Have you paid him the advance money?" I asked him.

"Yes," he retorted, while trying to trace the butcher on his phone. There was no reply from the other side.

As we lost hope to get our animal slaughtered in time, the butcher, along with his assistant, appeared on the scene to a warm welcome.

"Will he be able to handle the raging bull?" my elder brother quizzed, gazing at the frail, old man who was puffing on his cigarette tucked between his little and ring fingers. We all agreed with him that this feeble soul would not be able to do the needful.

"One of you should slaughter the animal with this knife while I and my assistance will do the rest," the butcher said, rather nonchalantly, and pulled a big knife out of his bag.

"Who else will cut the bull’s throat?" he roared.

We all looked at each other. I could feel my hands and feet turning cold despite it being a hot summer day. My brothers rested their gaze on me, as if requesting to cut the bull’s throat.

After roping in the bull, they handed me the chiselled knife with a long blade. My heart was pounding violently as I took a deep breath, tried to gather courage, and bring out the butcher in me. The thin old man was holding the bull’s neck for me to come forward and cut!

As I was about to run the huge knife, the bull shook its head, slinging the butcher in the air. "Stop, stop!" I heard the people shout around me, and the dreaded moment unfolded with the bull standing on its feet angrily and the butcher lying semi-conscious on the ground in place of the animal. The butcher’s neck was right at the place where a few moments earlier I was supposed to cut the bull’s neck. Thank God, the butcher was not in heaven and me in jail, as I was stopped at the right minute.

The rest was the usual story as we requested a professional butcher who was busy next door, to perform the task.

-- Mazhar Khan Jadoon

When a cow that had just escaped qurbani came bounding towards them

Fortunately, or unfortunately, goats brought to our house for "Bakra Eid" have always behaved well. Their journey from the mandi to our home and onwards to the afterlife was always colourless and unremarkable. But my friends and their families are full of stories about the curious dispositions of their sacrificial animals.

There is one about a friend’s dad who, squeezed in the back of a Suzuki FX with a fully grown goat, had his ear nibbled upon the entire way home from the market to their house. And another one about a kasai who upon arriving at a friend’s house and meeting the goat he was meant to ziba (slaughter), claimed that the goat was under the influence of spirits and could not be sacrificed.

But the winning story is that of a friend, Sidra, who has always had a love-hate relationship with animals -- meaning that she loves them but they do not reciprocate the affection -- evidenced by how she’s been bitten by spiders, attacked by cats and birds and kicked by horses.

Many years ago, dressed in their Eid-finest, Sidra, her older sister, and a few cousins were meeting and greeting each other in their shared apartment courtyard when a cow that had just escaped qurbani came bounding towards them. The gang of girls ran towards the nearest staircase, imagining that if the cow turned towards them, they could run up the stairs for security. They didn’t account for the fact that the cow, having just escaped death, was fully charged. Not only did it follow the girls towards the staircase, the cow then also began to chase them up the stairs.

Because Sidra was the littlest in the all-female crowd, Baji, a domestic worker hired by the family, grabbed her hand and for three flights of stairs Sidra was practically flown up by her; the cow right behind them and older cousins right in front.

On the third landing, Sidra’s shoe came off. In the heat of the moment, Sidra decided to wrangle her hand from Baji’s tight grasp to retrieve her shoe. Whether this was to save her shiny, new shoe from being trampled by the cow, or to prevent her now-bare foot from getting soiled, she doesn’t remember. But she does remember Baji looking back in horror as Sidra slipped out of her clutches, yelling "Why did you stop?"

Sidra, Baji, and the shoe survived unscathed. The cow ignored them and continued to chase the older girls up the stairs until the kasai and his men finally caught up with the farm animal and forced it down the stairs and towards its inevitable death. Isn’t that how most Bakra Eid stories end?

-- Maham Javaid