Avani in Tripuradevi, Kumaon, Uttarakhand, India
Saturday 12th of January
Kali puja… my crime to God?
I am hiding from the world… As if I have committed a severe crime… And I do also feel as if I committed a severe crime… My curiousness and search for community feeling drove me towards the Kali puja in which bakris (goats) were offered to the goddess Kali. The whole of Avani took part in the event occurring once in 5 years (according to Raju) at Avani… The thought of bakris not being killed every week by every single family made me happy… The offerings are luckily considered a special occasion.
I observed and the lens of my camera curiously and bluntly recorded every single step of the offering. From the ritual initiation of the goats and murgis (chicken), over cleaning the different parts of the body till the sharing of the meal all together… This last part of the ritual unusually shared this time by members of different casts as people from different social strata are working in Avani.
Goats were offered a little food, unconscious and innocent they ate without realizing the knife coming down on their necks. Cut… , cut… , cut… , cut… All four bakris lost their heads… The big Avani goat did not get any food offered as at that current moment there was no food in the immediate surrounding. Due to laziness and eagerness for bakri meat by the humans around, ‘our’ goat struggled and fought for his (I prefer to refer to animals with she or he rather than it) last seconds of life.
I kept myself strong, although I gave a wimp when the head was cut of every single goat… The bodies stayed alive for some time and their heads previously wonderfully attached to their body turned into an element of a horror story… A moving head, whimpering eyes and tongue out of mouth reflecting the goat gasping for air…
The puja kept being ‘interesting’. Apart from the few chickens and rabbits my father slaughtered once when I was four or five, I had never seen the whole process of killing, cleaning, cutting and eating in a sequence.
The bodies of the goats were put on a wooden fire so most of the hair would go and the skin easily ripped off. After that the goats where being stripped of their skin. Lots of hair was not removed but that didn’t occur to the people cutting it into little pieces for consumption. Every single part of the goat was being cut, cleaned and cooked… including the intestines and stomach…
I observed everything. The slaughtering of the goat was done by the men. Almost by every man and I felt ashamed of the thought eating the meat without being able to bring myself to the killing, cutting and cleaning of the once so proud black goat.
After observing this thought, after observing the unhygienic way the slaughtering was being done (from the cutting to the cleaning), after observing the many hairs still left on the meat of the skin and after trying out one piece of skin I opted out.
I stuck to rice and dal which couldn’t have made me happier. It was difficult for me to understand those peoples cravings for bakri. During the last three months I have been eating so now and then some meat. Not in the least in Iran and Pakistan where vegetarian food was almost unavailable. However, in some ways I always feel guilty eating meat and whenever people ask me now whether I am a vegetarian, I can neither answer yes or no. I stick to saying I am not currently, but my heart still is and will always be.
After my meal I felt lost and not anymore at place… I had already avoided the place where kg’s of bakri and murgi was being cooked and preferred sitting with the ladies on a distance, using the excuse that I am also a bit a lady. They accepted the excuse me being a foreigner and having the long hair of a lady 
. I left the holy premises of the mandir (temple). To say it bluntly, I fled, I fled from the to me so uncomfortable stains of blood on the floor, the smell of burned hairs and the wooden fires where meat was cooked upon… I fled from a place where death was worshipped and retreated to my room. My stomach felt strange, I had been eating quiet late and unhygienic food and somehow it was more at unease than usual. I felt bad, I felt sinful… As I shouldn’t have observed the rituals in front of the Kali temple. I had prayed to God while offering the meat of the bakri and in some way I felt ashamed. I felt this was not the way to pay homage to god, to pay homage to the universe and to thank everything and everyone for this beautiful opportunity that was given to us, called life. Tears came rolling down my cheek and every time again I was remembering the cutting of the head and worse… I felt a hypocrite. How could I even have thought of eating the meat without being willing to kill the animal with my own hands? Wasn’t that one of the main reasons I became vegetarian 7 years ago? And now while eating meat again, I ’strangely’ come to the same conclusion.
I consider deleting the photos from my camera. I wanted to see, to observe. I even wanted to eat. And I took pictures from every single part of the ritual. But I stayed back like a conservative Brahman not willing to touch or handle any of this ‘dirty’ and to me ’sinful’ work. I behaved like a tourist which contradicts everything what I ought to be here.
