Of the numerous agricultural festivals of Mulk-e-Kashmir, Bal holds prime importance in the life of a village. It is a festival of sacrifice, a remnant of the times when people used to believe that sacrifice can achieve anything—perhaps they still do. It is usually celebrated in the month of September in the rice-growing villages of Budgoam. Over the years, the festival has lost its sheen in many villages; in others it has simply been discontinued, perhaps because many villages have stopped growing paddy altogether. But many villages that cultivate paddy still celebrate it with the same vigour as their peasant forefathers did. Bal was a thing in our village, which lies in Budgam, till 2014. I still remember those times like kaaluk batte.
As paddy begins to sprout, village khodpench meet at the house of the mokdam and fix a day for the celebration—in anticipation of a good harvest and to try to appease Nature to save crops from blight, hailstorm and other mishaps. These days, the date of the festival is announced on the mosque loudspeaker when in earlier times (sans loudspeakers) it was spread through word of mouth. Men visit relatives in other villages, mostly close ones separated by a single degree, and invite them to the feast.
On the day of Bal, a local butcher arrives in the village early in the morning, followed by a flock of lambs—younger the better: The villagers believe that the sacrifice of younger lambs pleases God more.
Bleating lambs herald the arrival of the butcher in the village. Children jump up from beddings and rush out of homes, and shepherds flock towards a small patch of land surrounded by tall chinars. Children play with the lambs, and some naughty ones try to ride them, taking them for horses.
Even as the lambs arrive at the slaughtering place, the khodpench are already assembling there. The butcher whets his knives on a small stone. He hides the knives from the lambs and encourages the children to play with them a little bit more and then some.
Once he has sharpened the knives to his satisfaction, he digs a small hole in the ground. He mumbles a prayer, probably some aayaat from the Quran. Then the lambs are brought to the hole one by one and the slaughtering commences. Blood gushing from their throats collects in the hole. As more and more lambs are sacrificed, the hole fills up with blood.
This is followed by the skinning of the lambs. It is a delight to watch the adept butcher at work as his knife creates poetry between the folds of a lamb’s skin, neatly avoiding the difficult rhyme scheme of its bones and swiftly cutting a turn of phrase through the muscles. With a swift motion of his blade, the tail comes off, and with another fluid movement, it is hurled into the air. Children run helter skelter, trying to catch it. The lucky one beams with pride and puts it over his face like a beard, pretending to be an old man.
Once the lambs have been skinned, the butcher starts the second session of The Poetry of the Knives. Fluidly, the meat gets cut into small pieces on a takhti. The first pieces are dropped into four separate tubs—one each for the village barber, cowherd, shepherd and pir; the last one is neatly washed and kept at a distance from the other tubs. The rest of the meat is sold to the other villagers, who bring earthenware tureens to carry the meat they buy. The butcher sprinkles some blood on the meat the villagers purchase.
At home, the meat is washed with hot water, preferably by the matriarch, usually a grandmother. The bloodied water is collected in a utensil, and the children take it outside and sprinkle it over the paddy in the fields, praying for the protection of the crop from natural and manmade disasters. After the children are done with the sprinkling, they move towards the periphery of the village, looking for white poplar trees, known in the villages as Bal Fras. Small boys and girls climb the tall poplar trees to cut branches and twigs to take home. In the afternoon, the daughters-in-law start to cook the meat. The preparations are simple: No meat is to be minced to make riste or some such, and the dishes are not to be too spicy.
After the evening prayers, at the time the guests arrive, children are given rice and a piece of meat from each dish that is prepared. The children carry utensils on their heads, and twigs in their hands. They walk in army-like files, and plant the twigs in their respective fields. Then they pour out the rice and pieces of meat on the borders of the fields, for the beast and man to eat. Once more, they pray for abundant produce. The villagers believe that God always listens to the prayers of children! Subsequently, the children retreat to the village. No one should look back; it is considered a bad omen.
Late in the evening, the feast is served. The entire family eats together. The patriarch tastes the food first, then the children. Then everyone is allowed to eat the food.
When I was little, I did not know a few of the guests who came home for Bal. I remember one whose name was Bilal. Grandmother would tell me he is Hazrat Bilal. He always carried a gun on his shoulder. He would arrive either early in the evening or late. He would be given a plate full of rice and as many pieces of meat as he could eat. After eating, he would disappear into the night. One year in October, he was killed in the paddy fields of our village. The villagers say that he fought like Rostum. They also say that the paddy grains had turned red, drawing on his blood.
After the feast, grandmothers would usually tell a fairy tale or something interesting that had happened in the village. My grandmother would relate the stories of Abraham and his son Ishmael, and the importance of sacrifice. She would also relate the story of Musa and Pharaoh, and how Musa led his people out of captivity. She would dwell on the details of how God demanded sacrifices of lambs from the people of Musa to protect the Hebrew children from the wrath of Allah.
I remember her saying, “We have watered the fields with sacrificial blood. The abundance of the produce this year is inevitable. Allah never wastes sacrifice, especially the blood sacrifice of young lambs.”
She would continue with the stories till all the children fell asleep. The following morning, the elders of the family would go to survey the fields and would make remarks like: “Sacrifice has enriched the land, and the future looks bright.”
