KARACHI: Eidul Azha is eagerly looked forward to by the qasais or butchers, both professional and seasonal ones. That’s when they visit homes with their set of sharp tools in bags, as doctors carry on house calls, and charge hefty fees for their services though the patients in their case never survive.

“Working here as butchers for all these years we know the bone structure and physical makeup of goats, lambs, cows, buffaloes and even camels. It is very important to know of each bone, muscle and joint to make the right cut at the right joint. Otherwise you’ll shatter the bones and end up with a big problem when everyone eating the meat will find small and sharp bone fragments in every morsel they put into their mouths,” says Mohammad Faraz sounding like an orthopaedic surgeon.

We are at the butchers’ lane at Burnes Road, where besides a row of butcher shops on either side of the road, there are also shops and vendors on carts selling knives and sharp tools of all shapes and sizes. One man on a stool is busy sharpening knives. Several unsuspecting sacrificial animals, including three camels, sit or stand munching away at their feed on the sidewalk as they watch the goings-on.

Faraz says that he charges Rs15,000 to slaughter and cut up a camel. “You’ll find many butchers who can easily slaughter cows and goats but very few are familiar with the anatomy of camels. And frankly, when you have tens of thousands to spend on your sacrificial animal, what’s a mere 15,000?” he reasons.

Nearby sit the cow and goat experts. “I charge between Rs10,000 and Rs20,000 for a cow or buffalo, depending on its size. For a goat, it is between Rs2,000 and Rs4,000, depending on what day it is,” says Mohammad Naveed.

“For instance,” explains his brother Anwer, sitting nearby, “everyone wants to be through with their qurbani on the first day. In fact, they want us there right after the Eid prayers. So the demand is very high on the first day of Eid when we charge Rs4,000 per goat. But as time passes our rate comes down. On the last day, we are down to Rs2,000 per goat. That day anything goes but we also have to maintain our standards. So we try to not go below Rs1,500.”

“The third day we are also in a rush as that is when we slaughter our own animals at home, otherwise the women at home will slaughter us,” laughs the first brother Naveed.

“Our earnings on each Eid day fluctuates from Rs20,000 to Rs50,000 as we are also humans and there is a limit to how many animals we can slaughter and cut up in a day. Basically, it takes two hours to complete work on a cow and even a camel, for that matter. And a goat is just a matter of half an hour,” says Faraz, the camel expert.

“Anyone who wants to make some extra money would be masquerading as a butcher during Eid-i-Qurban, but you can only find the experts at meat shops like these. Therefore, we are booked days in advance at this time of year.”

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2014