KARACHI: “These are for Rs120,000 here but I have one inside for Rs350,000,” says Liaquat Shah pointing to his cows, bulls and buffaloes for sale at a cattle market under the Clifton bridge. “I have brought them here from Bahawalpur. They are all home-bred, hence the price,” he tries justifying himself.

Nayyar Zaidi, a buyer, carefully checking out all the sacrificial animals on sale says, “The sellers may quote whatever price they may feel like, I will have my own offer for them. The Rs350,000 buffalo will not go for that much of course. I just gave the guy my offer for it, which is one lac less than what he’s asking for it. And the ones for Rs120,000, I have given a final offer for Rs90,000, take it or leave it.”

“People think that our prices are too high and unreasonable,” says Mohammad Hanif, another cattle seller, also from Bahawalpur.

“Look, sister, first of all transporting these animals all the way from Punjab isn’t cheap. We come here by road, travelling for two nights and one day, and pay the truck owners through our noses. Then here we are all chipping in to pay rent for this ground. At night we take four-hour turns to sleep and guard the animals, too,” he says gesturing towards the ground filled with dung. “Yes, we have to sleep and eat right here with the animals,” he adds.

There is a little yelp from a woman buyer as she tries pulling her chador from a goat which is happily chewing away at it. The cheapest goats at the market are priced around Rs19,000 but the buyers were sure they would be able to bring down their owners to Rs11,000 or Rs12,000. The expensive ones are for around Rs70,000.

“Size matters in all sacrificial animals of course. It’s common sense. The smaller ones would have less meat and the bigger ones more. An average size goat, however, would have at least 12kg meat,” explains Sharjeel Zohaib, who has brought his goats here from Mirpurkhas.

There are two goats he is particularly proud of. “I want to sell these off together for Rs140,000 as they are brothers,” he says showing off the decorated goats. Both are wearing shiny headgear like that of a bridegroom before the naughty one of them pulls at the shiny strings of the other’s headgear and starts chewing at them. “Oh!” says the owner, forcibly opening the animals mouth and pulling out the strings from between its teeth.

“This one here is always up to some mischief. I brought him here to Karachi last year, too. But he didn’t sell. He was a baby goat then and I was selling him only for Rs30,000 but he is all grown up now and should fetch Rs70,000 now,” he expects.

“The teeth of a goat matter, too,” one expert buyer, Shoaib Ahmed, explains as he goes around checking goats’ teeth. “Four teeth mean it is over 18 months and two teeth mean that it is around one year old,” he says.

“We take very good care of these animals and even have to bare the heartbreak of parting with them when they sell,” says Mulla Ahsan, who has brought down his animals from Nawabshah.

“It is not by miracle that they are so big in size. I feed my goats two kilos of wheat, two kilos of apples, one-kg lentils, besides two-litre milk and 3.5-litre water everyday. And asking Rs110,000 for each isn’t unreasonable,” he says.

Ahead of Eidul Azha, there are many such cattle markets across the city, the biggest of which can be found at Sohrab Goth. There one sees entire families looking for the best animal, including camels, that they can buy. The animals there, too, are paraded up and down like high-class models. Bargaining is mostly done by the women folk, who usually succeed in bringing down the prices by thousands of rupees. But if you are looking for some really good bargains in sacrificial animals, you should wait till Eidul Azha itself, especially the third day of Eid, when these very sellers selling goats for Rs110,000 and more literally come down on their knees and start selling at even less than half the price. Then the camels sell for the price of cows and bulls, the cows and bulls sell for the price of goats and the goats sell for the price of baby goats.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2014