Sale of decorative items for sacrificial animals go up

The sale of sacrificial animals and their decorative items is witnessing a rise in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, as the religious festival of Eidul Azha is around the corner.

Decorating the sacrificial animals with ornamental items is a popular trend amongst the people, especially children, before the festival. Traditional decorative items available in cities like Multan, Sahiwal, Kasur and interior Sindh are brought to different cities and are available at cattle markets of twin cities.

“I have been selling animal ornaments for the past many years. I usually sit beside different cattle markets where most of the people visit and keep on moving from one place to another to grab more and more customers,” said a vendor Ali Khan. “Youngsters especially children are more interested in visiting the stalls of decorative items as they want to adorn their sacrificial animals with the latest garland available in the markets.”

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The prices of garlands, anklets, bells and facial ornaments with flowers and garlands ranges between Rs 200 to Rs400 while the decorative cloth to cover the animal costs from Rs1,500 to Rs3,000 depending on the size.

A 14-year-old buyer Ahmad at decorative items stall at a cattle market in Rawalpindi said, “We are here to buy colourful garlands, crown and “payals” for our cow but the prices are so high that we even can’t buy all the desired items."

Sixty-five-year-old buyer Noor Ameen said, “I have spent already my maximum savings in buying my desired cattle as the prices were much higher than compared to the last year.” Now my grandchildren are demanding to buy decorative items but sellers are not ready to give any discount. Spending so much money on such things which will be useless after the ritual of sacrifice is unreasonable,” he said.

The sellers increase prices of such items considering the rising demand on their own and they know the fact that parents are usually forced by their children for such useless expense, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2021.