Bakri-Id

My friends and I went to Jama Masjid to get into the spirit of the Bakri-Id festival and have some good food.

Quick background: Bakri-Id is one of the key festivals among Muslims worldwide. On this day, Muslims sacrifice an animal to show their allegiance, faith and sincerity towards Allah. The sacrificial meat is distributed after the ceremony among friends, family members and the poor.

We got their in the mid-afternoon after cutting short our work day and were concerned that we may have missed the action. Walking down the main street from the Masjid, we eagerly looked out for chances to witness something special. However, what we mostly saw were cartful of pelts of goats and sheep suggesting that most of the sacrifices took place earlier in the day.

We soon spotted two boys (brothers) walking a couple of healthy looking goats through the market. We befriended them and learnt that they had paid about Rs. 15,000 for each goat and were taking them home for sacrifice the next day.

I have been around Jama Masjid a couple of times before. Always enjoyed the energy and color of the place but admit, walking through the back alleys while following the 2 brothers with their goats, that I had never been this far away from the main strip. It was different! Just as we started to give up hope of witnessing something special, we came across a walled compound with kids straddling the walls. Inside was a crowd of people (young and old) jostling about. We weren't sure what was going on but we decided to take a peek.

A couple of us climbed the walls along with kids. I decided to step into the compound after making sure that I wouldn't be upsetting any religious sensitivities. At first there was not much to see, but as I got closer to the crowd, I noticed that the floor of the compound was wet with what looked like a coat of fresh red paint...then I saw a skull of camel...and as I jostled for position, I came upon the large carcass of the camel. I realised that I was standing in a giant pool of fresh red camel blood.

We had missed by few minutes the actual ceremony of slaughtering the camel. The camel had just been skinned, the guts and the head removed, and a couple of butchers with big cleavers were starting the process of carving up the camel meat. Kids were running around in the wet blood and adults were trying to grab their share of the meat.

I was a little taken aback at first. My instinct was to think how cruel and barbaric the act was!! How cold and immune the kids were to what had just taken place!! However, I caught myself before I could go much further with that line of thinking. Bakri-Id is after all a 2,000+ year old festival and the slaughtering of an animal is an equally old ritual. Further, each religion has it's own quirks and unique beliefs that turns off the non-believers of that religion. In Hinduism itself, there are some Hindu known for performing such animal sacrifices.

So, with the "How could they?" line of thinking banished from our heads, my friends and I settled in to absorb this unique experience. There were several camel skulls littered around the compound and the guts of these animals were pushed away to the corners i.e. not the desired parts of the body. In one corner of the compound was a live healthy looking water buffalo waiting for it's turn. What was interesting was the lack of any foul smell that one associates with a most butcher shops in India. Apparently, fresh meat (and fish) do not smell.

We must have been there for over an hour and there wasn't much left of the carcass by then. A family walked by displaying their camel - fully decorated - for the neighborhood to behold. There was a roar of applause from the crowd as the camel walked to meet it's certain fate. However, it was time for us to leave.

At first we didn't think our stomachs would be ready for food. However, as walked back again through the alleys and on to the the main strip, we decided we couldn't leave without a mughlai meal on Bakri-Id - that too at Jama Masjid. Karim's tends to be a common choice but I personally think it is highly over-rated. We went to a place right next door - Al Jawahar - which in my humble opinion serves equally good, if not better, food without the hype. As their motto proudly states "All Mughlai food you TEST...Al-Jawahar serve the best" :-) (see picture)

What we observed together later on was how foreign the place and the experience felt. We were after all Indians, in India, and only about 20KM away from our own homes. Yet, it was as if, for that brief period of time, late in the afternoon of Bakri-Id, that we were transported to a place that felt much farther away. Guess that's what makes India such an amazing place if you like new experiences and travel. Overall a great cultural experience.

http://realtravel.com/new_delhi-journals-j6228911.html