DON’T know about the others but Pakistanis are very fond of playing around imaginatively with whatever figures. In other words, we, generally, love to enthusiastically boast about inflated numbers on the pattern of how the more insecure amongst us like to drop names. We love to exaggerate, and detract and cut into halves.

Currently, the tendency finds an expression through the good offices of the qurbani animals and the fateful stories starring their proud breeders and attendants. The bazaars at these annual fairs where the city dweller, the wily buyer, and the villager, the clever seller, engage each other in long patience-testing games aimed at deceiving each other are getting larger.

The animals, we are told each year with much fanfare, are getting pricier and their buyers definitely richer for them to keep pace with the increasing prices. That one Eid which was to bring their worldly worth down has eluded the people and more and more incredible stories of riches and fortune-making are added to the Baqr Eid folklore each time.

Only a few years ago, an animal that fetched its owner a very liberal amount of a hundred thousand rupees would leave the breeder and an ordinary qurbani aspirant equally envious. The fancy figure runs into the millions now as instances of brightly dressed women dancing to the festive tunes escort the comparatively less decorated and far more sober bulls and cows towards their final destinations via well-attended catwalks.

Mystery men, apparently moved by the true spirit of giving, visit the animal markets to help the sellers realise their rich dreams.

“I think that bull was for five crore or maybe two crores … in any case it was expensive.” The sentences spoken in utter wonderment and envy truly capture how, beyond a reasonable limit, it doesn’t really matter to us what utterly divine price tags we put on the purchase items in order to enhance their value and that of our own versions of it.

In other standard accounts, mystery men short of time and apparently extremely moved by the true spirit of giving continue to visit the animal markets to help the sellers realise their rich dreams. In one instance that has been frequently talked about in the neighbourhood these days, they came, they bought a clutch of camels, they lavished on the starry-eyed owners a few million rupees and they left with their catch.

The deal was sealed without the buyers as much as asking the first question, the one about the price. In the event, they also ensured that the people got their quota of the fantastic folklore, and the breeders and sellers in times to come will have a dream to live by as they deal with and dismiss legions of miserly buyers out to compromise the value of their sacrifice. They will live with the hope of one day being approached by another rich buyer ready to pay, without the otherwise usually very long negotiations — and read to pay by the handful and without counting.

Amidst all the numbers that these animals bring to the grand exhibition in the city, there is every now and then a reminder of how the spirit quite abhors ostentation and too much discussion about the price. Of course, no price can be attached to the true spirit of it and, in sync with the liberal bashing of the times, there is right now making rounds on the computers a write-up tinged with true religious fervour warning the faithful against the mischief that deceitful second-hand liberals may be up to.

These wayward liberals, the warning reads, are going to use the occasion of animal sacrifice to highlight the gap between the privileged and the permanently denied. The people at large are advised to ignore the unwanted commentary in the selection of their goat, and they are free spend to their heart’s content.

The market and the people have been combining successfully to thwart the rationalists’ rather lame attempts at introducing some kind of a formula to fix the going rates of these sacrificial animals. Perhaps it was inspired by the poet-philosopher’s verse (originally about democracy but which essentially tackles the issue of numbers versus weight) in which he calls for weighing them and not just be happy with counting them. He said: “Jamhooriyat woh tarze hukoomat hai kay jis main/Bandon ko gina kartay hain tola nahin kartay.”

At one point in time, the idea of purchasing sacrificial animals by the kilo did appear to appeal to sections of the public before it kind of faded away. This was a loss for, post-successful experiments on the animals, it could have been perfected to be used to have a true measure of those the Allama wanted it to strictly apply to. Or this could have been handy in deciding the other great debate we right now have about numbers, courtesy of the ‘controversial’ census we managed to have after so many years.

It should ideally be about how the people are living instead of how many of them are crammed in a given space. It should be about the quality of life, not the sheer quantity of it even when the numbers do determine to an extent our priorities and our preferences for places we think are worthy of setting up a home in.

The celebration has to ultimately be about those who are just content to be counted and those who stand up in a crowd with their commitment to lead and set an example. They are free to bask in the numbers but if anything, what should worry them is how, despite the swollen roll of attendance, diversity is fast going out of Pakistani life. They should be worried about whether they are preparing the next line of leaders in various areas who will eventually replace the current ones. The rare elected representative who works 24 hours a day. The human rights lawyer who is not afraid of taking the case of a tenant leader in Okara. The management that runs the trail-blazing cancer hospital. It is this distinguished bunch the city must try and protect.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2017