Eid mubarak, terms and conditions apply
Urban Bystander
The goat was ready for sacrifice. Islamabad was not ready for the goat.
Before entering the approved market, it required a gate pass, a fee slip, a health clearance and the blessings of the Ministry of Approved Mercy, which had no building but every citizen knew its counter. In this city, sacrifice does not begin with the animal. It begins with the receipt.
It was the Year of the Approved Sacrifice, when the salaried man performs his annual arithmetic and discovers, with the punctuality of grief, that devotion has once again outrun salary. In a market of goats, tarpaulins, dust and bargaining, 42 degrees had the civic honesty of 52. Men, animals and citizens waited in the same sun. Only the animals, it turned out, had paperwork.
Into this devout inconvenience went Hussain, the Bystander’s nephew, notebook in hand and innocence still dangerously operational. The adults were discussing prices, heat, traffic and office calls, which is how adults avoid decisions. Hussain acted. He left a note on the table, “Gone for special assignment. Don’t worry.” His mission was a goat with kind eyes, medium size, fluffy if possible, and unwilling to fight children.
The goat stood at the entrance to a sanctioned market, one of six the Authority had auctioned for Rs349.5 million, with the quiet pride of an institution that found devotion a renewable resource.
“What did the goat do wrong?” Hussain asked.
“It tried to enter Islamabad without regularisation,” said the man at the barrier.
Hussain wrote it down. Rule 1: No receipt, no goat.
At the barrier sat Constable Tufail, minor priest of paperwork, guarding the border between faith and municipal revenue. Rs4,000 for a large animal. Rs3,000 for small. Nothing for a camel, which the schedule had not anticipated, the way this city never anticipates the largest thing standing directly in front of it.
A Cashless System had been announced. Kiosks had been promised. They were in the press release, Islamabad’s only sector with reliable infrastructure.
Rs4,000 changed hands in cash.
Tufail wrote CASHLESS in the register with the confidence of a man who had defeated technology by spelling it correctly.
“Can we pay by card?” Hussain asked.
Tufail looked at the goat. The goat looked at the register. The system remained under process.
“System chal raha hai,” Tufail said, which in Islamabad means the system has stopped but the register is open.
Mirza Chughal Khor offered a correction. “Cashless means the cash goes somewhere you cannot see.” Hussain wrote it down.
Rule 2: Cashless means the cash goes somewhere you cannot see.
Inside, the market was a mall and the animals were assets. Bulls opened like plots. Goats forgot last year’s prices. Fathers came for piety and found property rates.
“Is there a cheaper goat?” Hussain asked.
“There was,” said the vendor. “Last year.”
“Can we buy half?”
“Beta,” said the vendor, “that is called hope.”
“Who controls the price?”
“Nobody,” said the vendor. “That is why it is called the market.”
Hussain wrote it down.
Rule 3: No price control, only price pain.
Those who could not manage a whole animal bought a seventh share in a cow.
“How will the cow know all seven?” a boy asked. His father changed the subject, the oldest method of theological crisis management.
By noon the goat had more official identity than several neighbourhoods: clearance, fee slip, number. It became visible the moment the receipt was issued. Entry: Rs4,000. Wrong location: Rs5,000. Wrong drain: Rs50,000. Islamabad had finally found an intestine it could account for. By the time the goat reached its approved future, the citizen had paid more departments than he had relatives. The goat awaited sacrifice. The citizen had begun his.
Elsewhere that week, less fortunate applicants approached the Ministry. Rawat traders brought ash from burned kiosks, garments, crockery, children’s shoes and Eid stock. Metro workers brought unpaid months and the news that men who moved the city could not move their own salaries. And from Noorpur Shahan, families brought the doors of the houses the Authority had bulldozed at dawn, on land it now called recovered.
The Ministry regretted the inconvenience caused by citizenship.
“Which counter is for them?” Hussain asked.
Mirza looked worried.
“Don’t write that one down.”
Hussain wrote it anyway.
Rule 4: Mercy is never refused. It is kept pending.
He closed the notebook.
“If Eid is about what we are willing to give up,” he said, “why does everyone keep giving up other people’s things?”
No one answered. The question went into the heat and did not come back.
At sunset, the goat with kind eyes had papers, protection and somewhere to go.
Constable Tufail closed the register and filed the day’s return to the Ministry of Approved Mercy. “One goat entered.Fee paid.Cashless cash received.Animal approved.Rawat referred.Metro deferred.Noorpur recovered.Citizen deducted.”
So, Eid Mubarak Islamabad. Terms and conditions apply.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
