Aidil Adha (Hari Raya Haji)

It came and went yesterday and i hardly noticed it if not for the early morning prayer at the mosque which I followed while half asleep in my bed feeling rotten about myself and how worse off i have become especially in my spiritual being. The Aidil Adha is celebrated primarily by those who have gone on the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and it involves the sacrificing of an animal by those who pledge such sacrifice towards the ALMIghty, Allah (SWT). It has to do with the covenant made between Allah (SWT) and his Prophet,Abraham in the effort to test the later's faith towards his Maker. Allah in this case had demanded that Abrham as test of his faith was to sacrifice his only son to Allah and this Abraham willingly carried out despite all his human emotions and attachments towards his only son, Ismail. Only Allah (SWT) in His infinite compassion at the very nick of time substituted Ismail with a sheep thus sparing the life of the boy. Henceforth, the Muslims had accepted the incident as a reminder in their history of their covenant with Allah through their beloved Prophet Abraham. For more detail and correct information on the subject I advise you to read it from amore authentic source and dont take my story to be exact.
I decided to join the festivity despite my feelings and headed on to the mosque where I learned that they were getting ready to slaughter three cattles in the nearby yard. I had always wanted to do some sketches of these scenes in the past and never got the chance simply because chances were that I would be handling the knife myself lending my expertise as a meat cutter of years gone by. I worked as a 'boner' for almost three and half years in Green Bay, Wisconsin when I first arrived in the US sometime in 1974 onwards. I worked in a packing house where we were packing cold storage meats for the making of hamburgers. If I had learned anything from this experience it was that to keep your knives sharp at all times!! A sharp knife makes a difference between making good tallies or going home with sore arms especially at the wrists. In the effort of keeping the knives sharp four things have to be mastered and that is the use of the grinder initially in order to put and edge on the blade, then the used of the sandstone or honing stone to make the edge last,the third and fourth care of the knife involves the expert use of the 'steel' and the 'ceramic' which helps to keep a sharp edge on the knife for a longer period of time. The mastering of these techniques makes one a master boner. The packing house I worked for at the time used to process about 900 to 1000 heads of cattle a day. The cold condition and the wet floors, the fierce compettition and the nature of the works itself can eventually turn one into a cattle. It was a dehumanizing work but ti was created me as a man who survived the worse that America had to offer for the next twenty years.
So watching my fellow kampong friends slaughtering the cattles did not have much of an impact on me as far as blood and guts goes. I took it all as another visual set of images that is in its raw form both aesthetically and emotionally invigorating. I enjoy the sense of being a part of an age old practice as primeaval as mankind himself except for the use of the chainsaw. The crowd gathered for the occaission were just as pleasing to observe and enjoy and the day went by with somethigbn positive manifesting instead of just another product of a manic depression or even despair for me who lately these days have been waking upon the wrong side of the bed.