KARACHI: The stray cats in lanes look happy and fed as they sniff the air before deciding which direction to head in next. The degchi, thaal, tokri, plastic tubs and bags all have qurbani meat cut in squares or plain mince. So what is it going to be? Seekh kabab, boti kabab, Bihari kabab, korma, karhai …

Your wish is their command. The restaurants you bring your qurbani meat to for preparing the dish of your choice can make all. As it is restaurants after Eidul Azha are in dire straits. Many load up their deep freezers much ahead of Eid so that they have plenty of meat in stock for the few meat-eating customers that they may get. Others just throw in the towel and stay closed or utilise the time to reorganise or redecorate. And then there are the few clever ones that decide to take in orders from people bringing them their qurbani meat.

It’s the third day of Eid and the long queue outside a popular kabab house at Burnes Road is unending. “I have brought this minced meat for Bihari kabab. I don’t know how much I brought so they’ll weigh it first, take my order and let me know the charge after which they’ll also give me a time for when to pick up my order this evening,” says Mrs Siddiq Babar from Saddar.

The man at the counter then asks her if she is okay with 10pm and she quickly shakes her head. “I have called guests for dinner,” she explains after which she is asked to come back at 9pm. “That’ll do,” she smiles before turning around again to inform the man that her husband or son would be coming to pick up the order.

“Not a problem, just don’t lose the receipt,” the man at the counter tells her.

What if you give nice clean meat and what you get back are kabab full of grease and pieces of fat? “Not a chance. I’ve been coming here for years now. These places have a foolproof tagging system for the different orders, which don’t get mixed up easily,” laughs Sohail Saeed from Jamshed Road, another customer standing in line there.

Shahid Makda from Garden East says that he is there for Bihari kabab, too. “People soon get tired of the pulao, biryani and gravy dishes and other simple homemade stuff. They want to get more creative with meat and they can always go for this option. Besides, who’s to tell that it was prepared by a restaurant and not the wife? And since the main ingredient — meat — has been brought by you, the charge for just preparation is quite reasonable, too, around Rs30 for a kilo” he says.

“The service of preparing dishes for you from your qurbani meat will go on until Muharram 9,” says one of the cooks at one such restaurant. “Since our restaurant offers barbecue dishes mostly, we get few customers around Eidul Azha and this is our way of staying open and in business. It also helps pay our salaries while keeping our customers happy, too,” he adds.

Published in Dawn, September 28th , 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play