"Things places friends faces,

Years and moments half forgotten

Laughs, tears, songs, fears

Memories are made of this."

The above were the opening lines of a TV series. The name of the series produced by the BBC UK and shown on PTV before 1971 was called, "A time to remember". It was an archival material based documentary showing the world of the late 40s and 50s.

Produced in 1959, it was popular as the contents were made of memories and ordinary life. True, it wasn't about our world yet it's the entire notion of memory that was common and arresting. Remembering is a collective activity that can stretch across borders and people.

Now as I sit and write these words, I realize that I myself am memorializing, remembering a past that is gone. But do we really remember what happened as we stood on the verge of events whose history shakes us till today?

Or as it happens to the villagers in the novel of GG Marquez, collective amnesia always hits those who have lived without sleep and never get a second chance after a hundred years in solitude.

Memories of rebellious cows and ritual sacrifices

Qurbani Eid is special because it involves a very difficult task of buying an animal, slaughtering it ritualistically, distribution of meat, handling those who gather after the meat is chopped for free deliveries, sending to relatives and friends and neighbours, receiving the reciprocation and then cleaning up the gory mess. The list of activities go on and on.

I know it's part of the faith culture and Qurbani or ritual sacrifice through slaughter is common to all religions but in Bangladesh it's not just that, it's also something bigger than that. It has a social and economic dimension that goes beyond the pale of faith practices. It's almost part of life and occasionally death or nearly so.

This year's Qurbani Eid has been muted in Dhaka this year compared to a few held in the previous years. Still, in Niketon where I live, it was good enough. Every apartment building had a few cows and goats tethered to something- from pipes to the gate and these animals were pampered before they met their final moment. Makeshift shops selling bye -bye feeds sprang up just outside the main gate and while a crowd didn't gather before them, enthusiastic buyers were very much on display.

As evenings descended and the traffic noise calmed down, the air was filled with the sound of mooing and braying of cows and goats. It's only when the night was deep into itself that silence reigned. Death is always silent for humans and animals both.

The Doctor and the cow

I sometimes forget how old I am and how distant the late 60s and early 70s are. They are almost a century ago in memory terms as laughter declines and forgetting begins. But I remember the family doctor who was very proud of his first qurbani of a cow. He talked incessantly of the cow he was going to send to God as a gift bought with his honestly earned coins. In those ancient days people didn't splash money around because not much was there anyway and what could spend were also few. For him, this was going to be his most expensive and extravagant purchase and he was rightly proud of it.

Once he had bought the cow, he led it home walking all the way, accepting the praises coming from the left and right of him as people leading sacrificial animals themselves were n't to get in those days. It's less popular now as I saw several half trucks in Niketon ferrying the cattle home to their temporary owners before ending it on the altar of ritual religious sacrifice.

Our good doctor was so excited that he barely slept the night. In the morning, which was the Eid day, he went out to inspect the fine animal he had bought. While he was examining the animal from various angles, the said cow, probably irritated by his constant murmurs of approval and tongue clicking, landed a firm kick just as he had bent down to examine the udders, on his head. Our doctor lost sense and fell to the ground and as family members rushed to him and his now bloodied temple, the animal wrenched at the tether, tore it from the ground and ran away.

The Cow and the doctor

Those were simpler days and the missing cow was found grazing only a few lawns away. By then an hour had passed and the doctor lay on the bed, his head bandaged bemoaning the lost purchase. The delinquent animal was brought back and the huzur was summoned and the eldest daughter to cheer up her dad went in and informed the injured da-cum- medical man about the latest situation.

Hearing the news, he immediately jumped up from his bed, picked a walking stick not even his which he found lying and rushed out to land a blow on the head of the cow. However, the animal about to be slaughtered was spirited enough to head butt him this time. And it was done so fiercely that he went flying and the doctor's involvement in the entire matter ended after that as he spent the rest of the day recovering in some anonymous bed in an equally nameless place for the injured innocent beings.

No such incident has been mentioned happening in Niketon this year.