Korbani'r
Eid
(Not
the way a bull might see it)
By
Hamdu Mia
Eid-ul-Azha
is here and every oli-goli of Dhaka is already getting filled
with cows and goats and occasionally camels. For this very short period
of time, hamba-hamba and baa-baa are noises you'll
encounter more often instead of the familiar honking horns of Dhaka
traffic. Four legged beasts will now walk in line with four-wheeled
beasts and the former will take up the garages and the driveways of
the former, even if it's just for a day. Smog will be replaced by
ammonia and other gases coming from you-know-where and very few people
will even complain about it. Little kids will be busy surveying all
the cows in the area, not all the upcoming games and cartoons. That's
what Korbani'r Eid is all about, with its own festive and
colourful mood.
A lot of chaos
goes on at the time of slaughtering. Four to five people struggle
to bring the sacrificial bull down and lots of people surround the
struggle to watch it. Although the bull is finally pinned down, the
feat of slaughtering it is hard to achieve. The main difficulty is
attributed to the fact that the hired butchers aren't actually butchers,
they're rickshaw-walas. Statistics will show that the total
number of animals slaughtered during Eid exceeds the total number
of butchers by a huge margin. So who's to slaughter all the cows and
chop the meat? Who else but rickshaw-walas? Korbanii'r
Eid is the time when many rickshaw-walas become butchers
for a day. They voluntarily go from one area to another offering their
services. What's more interesting is that they carry out this part-time
service with ample preparation. Every group of rickshaw-walas comes
equipped with enough "da"s, "boti"s, "chaku"s
and other sharp stuff. (Sometimes I wonder what they do with all those
knives when Eid is not around.)
Now let's come
back to the chaos I was talking about. (By the way, I'll refer to
the rickshaw-walas as butchers from now on; they deserve
to be called butchers.) As the butchers have a tough time wrestling
with the bull, our fathers, uncles and other murubbis keep
shouting at them relentlessly from close by. They keep cursing the
butchers for their incompetence. (Ei tomra kaaj paaro na, kon
akkele ei kaaj korte aascho!) Meanwhile, they also curse themselves
for being so foolish to appoint rickshaw-walas as butchers. (Ish,
kon dukkhe je tomader moto bekubder kaaj dilaam!) However, while
engaging themselves in this act of jharajhari, they forget
that they are being ungrateful towards the ever so benevolent rickshaw-walas,
who are doing a great favour towards society by filling in as butchers
on Eid day. The rickshaw-walas should be rewarded for their
heroic role. (At least they don't fool around like the UN!) Had there
been no such rickshaw-walas willing to become a butcher,
what would've happened to all those bulls? And what would've happened
to all the fokirs waiting eagerly for the meat?
Speaking
of fokirs, I was once perplexed by scenes I saw at the Banani
graveyard on Eid day. I went there around evening and was confronted
by a huge mass of people gathering busily at the place. The mass consisted
mostly of beggars and the like who had all come there with one common
objective sell the meat they had gotten that day. They were all selling
it to some buyers who were giving them rates lower than that of the
market price. That means the buyers would be selling this meat at
the market at a profitable price. (Wow! Modern commerce works in an
extremely intricate fashion! You'd never know it unless you've seen
things in Bangladesh!) That experience answered many of my queries.
I always wondered what beggars do with all that meat! They don't have
enough money to get all the spices and stuff to cook it properly,
nor do they have freezers like us higher class people who'd rather
stack the meat up in their freezers for months to come. So how could
the beggars ever consume so much beef and mutton? Thus I guess selling
the meat is the only choice they have.
You can't deny
that Korbani'r Eid is much more disorganised compared to Eid-ul-Fitr,
since it involves the holy duty of sacrificing an animal. That's why
it gets really messy. Cleaning up all the manure and blood takes a
lot of trouble. The smell remains for days while the stains remain
for weeks. Who can miss the nauseating entrails that are left lying
around in the all the garbage dumps, something that our city corporation
would have gladly overlook, judging by its nature? Our surroundings
are not the only thing that gets messed up. Every Eid my father manages
to get blood stains on his punjabi, if not anything worse. Sometimes
I feel sorry for the hujur that comes to slaughter the animal
by the neck. he gets drenched in blood from neck to toe and looks
a real mess indeed. These hujurs do a really good job, not
like the ones that shout for nothing in political meetings.
I
have lots of funny memories related to Eid-ul-Azha. I always enjoy
looking after our bull myself, even since the time when I was just
a kid. I remember crying like a girl on the very first Eid I can recall
since I had become too attached to the bull. (Apparently I had made
it my pet!) I'm sure Eid brings lots of people cheerful experiences.
(Well, back then seeing my newly found pet being slaughtered mustn't
have been a cheerful experience!) Korbanii'r Eid is the second
largest festival for Muslims in our country. No wonder it brings us
joy and happiness! One last thing: EID MUBARAK!
Opportunity
Sends 1st Mars Image
Opportunity's
successful touchdown brightened the mood of those working on the Mars
mission, who have been struggling to restore Spirit, the first of
the two rovers sent to Mars, to full operation.
"It
does look like we landed about 24 kilometers downrange from the center
of the target. We are still a little bit uncertain on that,"
said Richard Cook, deputy manager for the Mars Exploration Rover project.
"I think we're going to have a good place for science."
NASA
chief Sean O'Keefe opened a bottle of champagne in celebration. "What
a night!" he exclaimed.
Meridiani
is a flat, open plain that appears to be covered in a mineral deposit
called hematite, which on Earth almost always forms in an environment
that includes liquid water. Scientists have no idea how the hematite
got there.
They
plan to use the robot's instruments to determine whether the grey
hematite layer comes from sediments of a former ocean, from volcanic
deposits altered by hot water or from other ancient environmental
conditions.
Theories
that Mars was once awash with water got a dramatic bolstering from
data relayed to Earth recently by Europe's unmanned orbiter, Mars
Express.
Initial
results from Mars Express sketched an image of a planet whose surface
was once sculpted by seas and glaciers and confirmed indications that
its South Pole is capped by frozen water, the European Space Agency
said.
Spirit
and Opportunity, the two golf-cart-sized solar-powered rovers, were
to study the dusty Martian surface's geological characteristics for
three months to determine whether the Red Planet ever had conditions
conducive to life.
But
Spirit's breakdown came just as the rover was to begin searching for
signs of past life-sustaining water. The probe, which functioned flawlessly
after its Jan. 3 landing in Gusev Crater on the other side of the
planet, has been plagued with communications problems since Wednesday.
NASA
said a signal was received Friday from the solar-powered rover by
one of the giant antennas of the international Deep Space Network
near Madrid. Engineers planned to ask Spirit to provide further information
about its condition in an effort to work out why the rover fell silent.
While
engineers have made progress on figuring out what's wrong with Spirit
and taking steps to try to fix it, officials worried the problems
could take weeks to sort out, and may never be entirely resolved.
They're also concerned about the quality of scientific data Spirit
will eventually be able to provide.Jan. 25, 2004 Scientists marveled
Sunday as Opportunity, the second of two roving Mars probes, transmitted
its first images from the planet's surface, putting an $820-million
research program back on track.
The
black-and-white and color photos showed the probe resting on a plain
near a rock outcropping in an area of Mars known as the Meridiani
Planum, where Opportunity touched down at 9:05 p.m. PST Saturday (12:05
a.m. ET Sunday).
"I
am astonished. I am blown away. Opportunity has touched down in a
bizarre, alien landscape," said Steve Squyres, the mission's
scientific director. "It was exactly what it was in my wildest
dreams.”
-AFP
