[Reader-list] The Slaughterhouse

[Shveta]

Dear All,

This text, "The Slaughterhouse", is by Arish Quraishy. Arish, 20, was 
associated with the Cybermohalla lab at LNJP for a few months, then left 
to work at the slaughterhouse, only to return a few months later with 
this text. He continues to work and be associated with the LNJP lab now. 
The text has been translated from hindi.

warmly
shveta

----------------------

The Slaughterhouse
by Arish Quraishy

Today is my sixteenth day. It's 4:00 AM, at home everyone is still 
asleep. Everyday at this hour I wear my dirty work clothes, put a fresh 
set of clothes in a bag and set out for the shop by quarter past four. I 
read the /kalma/ under my breath each day as I go. First, I take a three 
wheeler to the market. The driver takes five passengers in one vehicle 
and takes five rupees from each passenger.

I always sit between two people so that I am protected from the cold. 
But that day luck was not on my side. One old uncle wanted to take my 
place so he wouldn't feel cold. He said he wasn't feeling well and asked 
if I would let him sit in my place. I shifted towards the side which was 
open to the outside.

It was 4:20 in the morning, it was very cold, and the three wheeler was 
moving fast. It was quite dark. Because of the speed, the route of 24 
minutes was covered in 10 minutes. I got off at the goat market. 
Everyone paid the auto driver five rupees in change and went towards 
their work. The goat market is a big market. Lakhs of goats, sheep and 
buffaloes are cut here from three in the morning. But this is not my 
destination; I'm going to the hen market. The Kasabpura police station 
lies in the way. This place has several names. Someone calls it 
Kasabpura, someone Sadar police station, someone Idgah.

On the way, three men were passing with forty goats. One man pulled a 
goat by its ear; the goat bleated loudly, holding back, falling, then 
moving. The remaining thirty nine goats followed quietly behind him and 
the two remaining men beat them with sticks from time to time to make 
them move in line. I wondered how dragging one goat by its ear can 
control an entire army of goats. The goat right in front can sense it's 
going to be killed and so it struggles. One refuses to move because of 
fear of death and the goats behind follow him for fear of getting their 
ears pulled.

I reached my godown, put the bag with my clothes in one place and went 
down to the shop. There are many shops that sell chicken on this street. 
The surroundings are spacious. There are several buildings and people 
who have homes here have raised their height over time. The godown in 
which I work is managed by my close relatives; they own two big godowns 
on this street. The godown has several nets; each net holds about sixty 
hens. If all the nets get filled, the remaining hens are let loose on 
the ground. One godown can hold roughly 7000 hens. Walking towards the 
godown I saw the truck on the road in front of it was filled with crates 
with hens. Two men had climbed on top of the truck and were taking down 
the crates one by one. Men in pairs would take hold of the crates from 
below and throw them on the ground with such force that even the hens 
sleeping in them would wake up.

Each crate weighs around 18 to 24 kilos. After all the crates are 
brought down, all the men begin pulling the hens out from them. There 
were fourteen of us in all that morning. Four were from Nepal, seven 
from Bihar and three, including me, were locals. The way the hens are 
pulled out of the crates is by holding four in one hand and two in the 
other and throwing them to a side. Once a crate is emptied, it weighs 
ten kilos. When the crates begin to get empty, one man climbs up the 
truck again and as everyone passes him back the crates, he pulls them up 
and lines them up in the truck. In this way, we fill up both the godowns 
before sunrise. It was our challenge to all the set-ups along the entire 
road that if anyone else manages to finish this work before us, we would 
give them Rs 10,000. The entire road knew no one was as quick as us. One 
of the men from Nepal told me this; he is my friend, his name is Chi Chi.

By 7:00 AM we have between 300 to 400 hens ready in the net for cutting. 
Two drums are kept next to these nets. As the hens are cut, they are 
thrown inside these drums. One person holds the hen, the other cuts it. 
The knives used are so sharp that if someone's finger comes in the way 
it gets cut to an extent that it needs stitching back together.

A drum holds about 150 hens. After it fills, it needs to be turned over 
and emptied. The one who cuts the hens also empties the drums.

That day I was really out of luck, because I was the one cutting the 
hens. The man from Bihar who was holding down the hens for me said, 
“Arish, empty the drums.” Now I have emptied drums with 40 to 60 hens 
before, but I've never emptied one with 150 hens. I went and stood near 
the drum. Immediately, the smell – no not the smell but the vapours from 
the drum – they hit my brain. I felt dizzy. I turned to this man and 
said I was feeling dizzy. He told me not to worry, that this happens in 
the beginning, that I would get used to it in time. I said ok. The drum 
was filled till the top. Hens had fallen one on top of the other, all of 
them wet with the red blood; mouths were open, eyes shut and the veins 
from the necks protruded out.

There are two doors to the shop. One, which is the main door, is made of 
glass. Customers come in through it and meat readied for sale is also 
brought into the shop through it. Next to it, by the wall, is quite a 
big fridge in which frozen hens are kept. Across from it is a counter 
where the munshi sits and records all transactions. A huge weighing 
balance is kept there; we call it /kaanta/. Knives of different sizes 
are kept by the /kaanta/. A man sits there and cuts and weighs the hens. 
All the labour sits beneath his bench on a wooden platform in a row. One 
quickly cuts off the wings, claws and tail end of the hens, which is 
once again thrown onto the floor. Another picks up one hen at a time and 
peels it like a banana. These men are so skilled that they can unclothe 
a hen, chuck its casing to a side and fling the hen next to the man 
sitting on the bench above them in ten seconds.

It was the man again, “What are you thinking? Empty the drum or the 
consignment will get spoiled.” Saying “sorry, sorry” I titled the top of 
the drum towards the shop and tried to lift it from below; but I 
couldn't do it. I said, “/Yaar/, I can't lift it, it's too heavy for 
me.” He said, “OK, I will hold it from this side and you hold it from 
the other.” We lifted the drum together and turned it over. It took us 
more than one minute to do this. All the men in the shop began to cheer 
to encourage me. Then they clapped and poked fun at me, “Wow Arish, you 
are one powerful guy.” I laughed. I was thinking, all the effort was 
this other man, the real muscle power – why are they giving me 
accolades? I am so thin and he is so well built. I said, “Come on, let 
it be!” Then I stepped out onto the road.

There is a hotel next to our shop. Nihari is prepared here in a huge 
vessel, by lighting wood under it. It gives out so much smoke that it 
makes your eyes smart. All this smoke makes its way inside our shop 
because of which we have to keep the door to the shop closed and also 
keep telling the people working in the hotel, “Come on, use a fan to 
direct the smoke in the other direction.”

At around 9:00 AM, I have to set off with a slip to the /chacha/ who 
make tea. There is a small noting pad in our shop and it has a slip 
which says '14 cups of tea and 14 rusks'. I remind someone, “/Bhai,/ it 
is time for tea”, and am handed this slip and I go to the tea shop. The 
tea shop is near the other godown. /Chacha/ always wears /kurta-pyjama/ 
and covers his head with a /topi/. His shop is very small. It has a huge 
saucer for frying which is always filled with milk and next to it lies a 
table with a gas burner on it. /Chacha/ makes tea on a frying pan on 
this burner. Cups, glasses and saucers for serving tea are kept close 
by. There is a young boy in //chacha//'s shop who cleans the table and 
washes the used cups, glasses and saucers and arranges them back in 
their place in a single row.

I handed the slip to /chacha/ and said, “Send the tea and the rusks over 
to our place quickly.” /Chacha/ said, “The boy has just stepped out on a 
chore and it will be some time before he returns. Why don't you wait and 
take the tea with you. ” I sat down. Just then a man came and sat next 
to me. He looked drunk from the previous night and it seemed to me he 
had come to /chacha/'s shop to drink tea and get over his hangover. He 
was very quiet and his body was swaying. Then he turned to me and said, 
“Can you give me some water to drink. I am feeling a bit dizzy.” I gave 
him water, he thanked me, and I said it was no problem. Then he became 
quiet again. By then /chacha/ had started preparing our tea. What I like 
about //chacha/ /is that he always uses fresh tea leaves so his tea 
turns out well. Sitting there I suddenly thought for a moment, “If only 
I was here by myself and not here on work. I would have had no worry nor 
anxiety about work, and would have sat here comfortably drinking my cup 
of tea, watching others doing their work. There, someone is out in the 
sun, pulling hens out of crates and cutting them, someone is packing 
them, someone is taking the packed parcels and loading them onto 
rickshas, someone is passing on his way to somewhere else, someone is 
rushing past. Cars, rickshas, trucks, scooters – all these pass by here 
and it's always crowded between 8:00 in the morning to 2:00 in the 
afternoon...” Tea was ready and I took the tray with the glasses of tea 
in one hand and the rusks in the other and head back towards my shop.

On seeing me, everyone stopped work and got up to wash their hands to 
have tea. Each person picks up one glass and one rusk and settles down 
with them in their own corners. I wash my hands. Hands must be scrubbed 
very well because there is no soap. After drinking tea we will all get 
down to pulling the outer skin off the hens and our hands will get dirty 
again.

The way to peel a hen is very specific. First hold the hen in one hand 
and pull one of its legs. It's skin will tear. Insert four fingers under 
the skin and pull with abrupt force. The skin will come off from one 
side. Then do the same thing with the other leg. Now turn the hen over 
and break its head from the neck. Push your fingers into its stomach and 
pull out its intestines and discard them to one side.

I keep thinking Babli, Nasreen or Neelofar would find this very 
difficult to look at. Because in the beginning I had found it very 
difficult as well and I had thrown up. I didn't like being in this 
environment at all. But work is work, after all, and I had to endure. I 
didn't have any options.

By noon, all the work is done and cleaning begins. We collect everything 
that has been discarded with /phawdas/ and collect them into 
wheelbarrows. These are then taken to the big garbage dump behind the 
Idgah. I have never seen such quantity of garbage as I have seen in this 
garbage dump. We finish doing this by 12:30. The shop is washed by 
spraying water from the taps by using one meter long hose pipes, soap 
and brooms. Blood and tissue that remains stuck to the walls is scraped 
off with knives. No one walking into our shop after 1:00 PM will be able 
to make out the place was so dirty in the morning. By afternoon, the 
place doesn't look like a shop but a showroom.

Then everyone goes to the godown to bathe. After bathing, those who live 
there will cook. They eat chicken and rice everyday. Someone takes a 
bath immediately, and someone goes to sleep first. Everyone is very 
tired by this time. I bathe, get into my fresh set of clothes and make 
my way to the market to catch a ricksha ride to Paharganj. From there I 
take a bus home. At home, I eat and lie down to sleep, thinking, “Why do 
the hens have to be thrown around so much?”

Arish // March 2007 // LNJP Lab
Translation 1.0 // July 2007