Moni Mia earns his living by pulling rickshaw and he can barely run his family — wife, three children and his mother — with what he earns.
Having beef, which sells for Tk 300 a kilogram at kitchen markets, at a meal in a day is a dream he can hardly dream of. But even then he cannot think of passing an Eid-ul-Azha without some beef for his family to eat on this special occasion. He would be needing three kilograms of
beef for the family and some guests.
He could arrange a few morsels of meat for members of his family and some guests on Eid day as he could buy three kilograms of beef from someone who collected meat from households in his neighbourhood for Tk 400 after a long haggling.
‘Can you believe this? Three kilograms of beef for only Tk 400! It happens every Eid-ul-Azha — for six hours once a year,’ Moni said as he bought the beef from a man standing on the railway, near a slum, in the Malibagh level crossing on Wednesday afternoon.
There were many others haggling prices with about 50 people, mainly poor young men and a few elders holding polythene bags full of beef collected from households.
Collected meat was sold along the railway and in slums in places such as Moghbazar, Malibagh, Karwan Bazar, Khilgaon, Kadamtala and Dhalpur. Low-income people, mainly rickshaw-pullers and day labourers, who feel shy of collecting meat from door-to-door visits were buyers.
Main buyers at these places were agents of restaurants in the city as they could buy meat for low prices and hoard it for the next few weeks.
At Karwan Bazar, an agent of a restaurant, who was trying to weigh bags full of meat collected by street children, said that the restaurant owner had given him Tk 2,000 to collect meat from beggars. He was hoping to buy at least 30 kilograms of meat for the amount.
The Muslims sacrifice animals and they distribute a portion of the meat to the poor and relatives.
‘It is a different beef market,’ said a young boy, Md Shamim Hossain, who was selling such meat in the Moghbazar level crossing. ‘It begins in the afternoon and ends just after the evening.’
-With New Age input
