Kopelo Krome
“The meat portion you have selected is just too good, this cannot be given to you as it is”, said the butcher, whose meat shop was just below the North Police Station, Kohima, to a lady customer (just about a couple of month back) who had selected certain portion of the meat as she had desired to purchase, but purchase, she did.
In my context, it was only a couple of week back that I had the unpleasant pleasure (in person) of being given about 500 grams less, for the desired 2000 grams (2Kgs) of pork that I had paid for, which included some disgusting portion of lungs which I objected to saying that that very portion need not be included, but to give me what they had weigh for me (No doubt, that unwanted portion of pig lungs was packed in the polythene bag to increase the weight and fool me-sic!). Anyway, I took the meat and had the same meat put on the weighing scale in a nearby local shop which gave me the reading of about 500 grams short of the pork meat that I had paid for. Now, feeling so cheated, I went back to inform the butchers that 500 grams of meat given to me was short, to which they cut some pieces of meat and (took back the portion of the unwanted lungs I gave back) put it in my polythene bag. I went back to the same shop nearby, and what the reading gave me was that, I still had been cheated of around 200 grams. The young butchers who had been cheating (others also for umpteen times) only said, “Don’t feel bad”. What humorous sense of hospitality - forget the honesty part here for now.
I was made to understand that, in the late 80s, a certain Angami lady posted in a certain district in Nagaland was served with only half a kilogram, for a kilogram she had asked for, with the unexpected comments from the butchers saying, “This is how your people in Kohima serve us, take it or leave it!” What an embarrassment she had to undergo for no fault of hers. Let alone non-locals and others who cannot speak Tenyidie, it always seems to be an ordeal having to go marketing for meat then, because these days, our butchers are an improved lot, even if they still have a lot to understand a customers’ sentiments. Maybe, it will do our society much good, if our KMC (Kohima Municipal Council) can take our butchers for an excursion to our immediate neighbouring state(s) and let them experience how they are being served with what portions of meat they want, and also the amount that they want to purchase. But here, they should be encouraged to buy 200/300 kilograms only, and not go for 2000/3000 kilograms of (any) meat. Time is really short for our highly regarded Butchers to mend their ways before, they themselves become a stumbling block to their own children who are/ or will be going out to the cities for further studies or for many other personal matters.
There are so many accounts of experiences that I have heard when the slaughter house was confined to New Market only. But I guess what has been projected already will serve its very purpose, even if I have avoided some very very unforgivable incidences experienced by many customers with our Kohima Butchers then, who have had least regard for man or woman, young or old, local or non-local. Anyways, we always expect the best out of others, while we least bother about the other person’s welfare. Is it fair that we demand fair deals when we ourselves are so unfair? We say we are being cheated left-right, but are we not cheating others from head to toe? We harp so much about our past glory i.e. Honesty, Hardworking, Hospitable et cetera, but what are we now? Some old folks had said that, Nagas were more true to oneself before the advent of Christianity. It is time for all of us to digest, and digest again we must, and work towards rebuilding of the 3 Hs, before we are all put on a weighing scale and getting dumped left or right. Meanwhile, our most priceless 3 Hs is being butchered!
