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eid

Eid al-Adha in Mumbai: One Square Kilometer Of Goats (Part 2)

The morning of Eid, after repeatedly assuring us that it wouldn’t be an inconvenience, Asim kindly invited the foreigners from the office to his family home nearby Dharavi for Eid al-Adha. I’ll admit I was a bit nervous for this: I had never seen anything sacrificed before. We wound our way through the narrow streets to Asim’s home and greeted his extended family. Everyone was sitting around the living room in their Sunday best casually chatting and surfing the internet on their smart phones. The scene looked like it could have been the living room of any of my family’s holidays, except for one key difference: there was a skinned goat cut in half sitting in the center of the living room. The head and legs were on a platter underneath a chair. What a way to start off the week!

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Eid al-Adha In Mumbai: One Square Kilometer Of Goats (Part 1)

Note: this one isn’t for the faint of heart!

It was a boiling hot Saturday morning and my stomach was not feeling 100%, but there was no way I was missing this. When you get invited for a behind the scenes peak at your friend’s most meaningful religious holiday, one I had never even heard of before I moved to India, you don’t make excuses, you go. So I ate the blandest breakfast I could muster (oatmeal), drank a few liters of water, spent some quality time in the bathroom, and headed north to Asia’s largest goat market.

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