Mumbai:
In the city of Mumbai, where Muslims number about 3 million, in a
total Metropolitan population of 13.6 million, the difficulties that
Muslim face in carrying on their religious duties, is something the
world is yet to know about. Though there is a general sense of calm
within the community, the day to day discrimination that Muslim face
borders sometime on absurdity. This Eid, I heard 3 stories, which
give a picture of vagaries of performing Qurbani, in the city,
though not always directly relating to Administration or non-Muslim
citizenry. The city is just not geared to take any note of Muslims
residing in the city.
Muzzammil, a call center employee
raised in a ritualist Muslim family, though married to a converted
Catholic girl, thought to have his first crack at a separate Qurbani,
while settled a new rented home of his own, in Versova village.
Around Versova, there are some unofficial spots where sheep and
goats are sold. It is presumed that even though that impromptu sheep
market is to facilitate Muslims to buy their Qurbani sheep and goat
locally, without having to travel long distance to Deonar Slaughter
House complex where bulk of Qurbani lot is brought and offered for
sale, the Versova road side sheep cluster owes, according to public
perception, more to the business acumen of local police, who are
ever ready to claim their cut while providing even the slightest
services to the people of Mumbai. Muzzammil found to his distress
that the prices are so high that it was less the price of sheep/
goat and more possibly for the extortion money that was to be
compulsorily, possibly in advance, when miserable looking sheep and
goats are herded to the area a week before the Eid ul Ad'ha feast
day (Bakri Eid in local lingo). Muddassir and his friend, Suhel, who
is working with a Baskin Robbins franchise, thought of traveling all
the way to Deonar to buy their goat. There they found a virtual sea
of sheep and goats, but instead of competitive prices that should be
the hallmark of any such mandi, they were quoted Rs. 20,000 to
40,000 per head. Both young boys got the shock of their young lives
to hear of such high skyrocketed prices. They spent 4 hours trying
to buy 2 goats of good height and bulk, as per Sharia requirement of
offering the best for Qurbani. After much haggling with professional
market traders, for whom the once a year buyer was dead meat, they
finally got one each for Rs.12000 per head. Now the problem of
transporting the goats to Versova was a big headache. Muzzammil who
had spent a year in New Delhi, and was amazed at the communal divide
in the capital where Muslims were treated either with awe or with
palpable hatred, depending in the locality you are moving about.
Having been born in the cosmopolitan Mumbai and had thrived in disco
circles, he could not help comparisons between the two cities. He
now felt that in his home city, the way non-Muslims are responding
to Qurbani and Qurbani related issues depict a deliberate
deterioration of communal harmony that had prevailed at grass root
levels, even after Bombay Riots and bombings, both sordid events
relegated to mean politics of the electoral distortions. The only
means Muzzammil could find to transport his Qurbani goat, was the
ubiquitous three-wheeler auto-rickshaw. (The other alternative was
to ride the animal all the way back home). Nobody was prepared to
give a ride to a man and his goat. One did agree to take Muddassir
and his Qurbani, as he was traveling in that direction. The only
condition was that Muddassir should wash the auto-rickshaw when they
reached his destination. Poor Muzzammil had to agree to such onerous
terms, all for the sake of Almighty Allah, who had enjoined him to
the sacrifice an animal to prove his devotion to his Creator. When
the party reached the building where Muzzammil's elder brother
lives, Muzzammil took the auto to a distant corner in the compound,
fetched water and washed the auto-rickshaw with buckets of water.
The Auto-man still complained about the stink of the goat. Muzzammil
had to reward him extra, above whatever he had agreed to pay, just
to get him off his head.
In the building, where Muzzammil had
planned to sacrifice the goat, the majority of flat owners are
Muslims; so apparently there was no hassle about Qurbani, if it was
to be allowed or not. Those Muslims, who are not staying in 'Muslim
majority buildings', just cannot get their society's permission to
sacrifice the goats. However, Muzzammil had to content with another
big problem. It so happened that there are more than 20 goats and
sheep to be scarified and only one butcher was available. Lots were
drawn, about who will get the first chance to get his goat
sacrificed. The whole list was already finalized. Consequently, when
his turn came, it was one o'clock in the afternoon. Both Muzzammil
and his goat wilted in the scorching heat of November Mumbai. When
the butcher finished with his sacrifice, Muzzammil was feeling as
dead as the sacrificial goat.
The next problem was to distribute the
sacrifice mutton. The total weight of goat, the finished product
came to about 40 kilos. He was enjoined to make 3 parts of the lot,
one for himself, one for the relatives and friends, and the third
for the poor people, not necessarily from the Muslim community. In
fact, wherever, it is known that Eid sacrifices are being performed,
hordes of poor people gathered to collect freely distributed meat,
which they would hardly even dream of buying and cooking, given
their economic background. It is well known that people from Dalits,
OBC and others waited whole year for this occasion to relish the
rich quality of the sacrifice meat. (There are exceptions to the
rule. A high caste Hindu, known for his devotional jaunts and strict
veg routine at home, eagerly sought the sacrifice mutton, to the
surprise of the Muslim neighbour. After some years, it was reported
through maids’ grapevine that in fact, he offered that mutton to his
dog.)
Transport being the big problem, even
though he made small packages for the relatives and friends, many of
whom, though could afford and were enjoined to offer Eid Qurbani,
had no energy to go through the rigmarole of the sacrifice
logistics, the spread of his relatives and friends all over the
city, made it next to impossible that he could reach everyone of
them, to complete his religious mission. To find a ready solution,
he chose a Versova orphanage, where he gave bulk of the sacrifice.
Still so much remained that the fridge freezer conked out. Next day,
he took every single piece of mutton and dragged himself to the
distant Bandra suburb, where his granny had more established
contacts to distribute the sacrifice mutton. He had his favorite
granny’s finger licking chops and got a take-away fashion plastic
bag full of Biryani for his wife, who had hardly the skill to
prepare an Eid biryani for his Muslim husband. A call-center
employee, used to stay awake long hours, Muzzammil was so tired by
the time he got a half kilo of biryani and headed home, he wished
for a stretcher and an ambulance that could transport him to Versova
and a long stretch of sleep, when he would certainly not be counting
sheep.
Ashfaq Munshi Saheb is a big family
man. He stays in a beautiful old bungalow, bang on the Perry Road,
Bandra. He got about a dozen of goats a night before Eid and
sheltered them all in his compound at the back of his residence. In
the morning he found, one goat dead. Now, more than the sacrifice,
his problem was how to dispose the dead goat. Since the goat was
already marked for sacrifice, it cannot possibly be treated as
garbage. They decided to bury it in Bandra’s Naupada Qabarastan.
When they got the dead sacrifice to Qabrastan, the in-charge refused
to bury it in the graveyard. After hours of haggling and arguing,
the in-charge pointed to a heap of rubble in the adjoining Railway
yard, long deserted and rotting with rusted steel remnants of old
steam engines and relics of old discarded train bogies. They dug a
deep hole in the rubble and buried the sacrifice goat, with proper
rituals reading fateha on the improvised grave. It is difficult for
Ashfaq Saheb to make out if his sacrifice was in order or not. He
has yet to get a fatwa. But for the time being his problem is dead
and buried under heaps of rubble.
Not was the same case with 4 heads of
cattle, thrown on a garbage dump, in Dharavi, Mumbai, reportedly
India’s largest slum area. Big cattle are allowed to be slaughtered
only in Mumbai Municipal Corporation’s Deonar Slaughter House. The 4
severed head belonged to 4 animals legally slaughtered at Deonar. An
official receipt against Municipal fee details is handed over to
help people to transport sacrifice slaughter across the city, from
Deonar to the residence of those making the sacrifice. At short
distance around the entire city, roam rowdy gangs of extremist
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) rabble rousers. The Municipal receipt is
proof enough that no illegality is involved in the Qurbani. That
receipt saved the Dean of the orphanage that got the 4 cattle
sacrificed. While the Dean was out, some boys decided to throw the 4
heads into the neighbourhood dump, without realizing the havoc they
could cause. Somebody informed VHP gang and they gathered a big
crowd of protestors, demanding the perpetrator of crime to be
arrested and punished. Luckily, the police immediately came on the
scene, investigated the matter, checked the Municipal receipts and
handed back the severed heads back to the Dean for more appropriate
disposal. A communal riot was barely averted.
On the other hand, Muzzammil, brother
of Muddassir, had his own tale of woes. He had a string of bad luck
with his sacrificial sheep. The ones he got home were found to have
crooked horns and milk teeth. That is unacceptable as a sacrifice.
The animal should be without any defect or blemish. Back he ferried
them, to get a replacement pair. The next morning he found, one of
the two fuming at the mouth. Immediately, he transported the goat
back to the dealer and got his money back. The sheer logistics of
transporting animals from one point to another in a city is not
everybody’s cup of tea. There are no organised social service groups
that take the pain out of the practice. It is reported that Kuwait
authorities have a very streamlined system, where a person selects
his goat, sheep, bull or camel and pays the amount including the
service charges. The animal is collected from him and he is given a
numbered token. At the other end of the assembly line slaughter
house, he gets his sacrifice, all nicely processed and packed in
parts, ready for distribution. The authority of a Muslim state
certainly makes it easy for the Muslim citizens to trust the
establishment and hand over all Qurbani details to it. In India, one
wonders if any voluntary Muslim organisation will be able to earn
people’s trust and make life easier for a Muslim who wants to offer
a Qurbani on Eid ul Adha. It is another matter that any such
organised system of Qurbani will robe the charm of adventure that
goes with Qurbani ritual every year.
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