The Butcher with the Golden Arm
If you don't know what day it is and you are going somewhere and if you had to cross Jin Baasha's Butcher shop and if the shop is crowded enough to block the streets, you can say it without a calender that today is a Sunday. Jin Baasha, the 36 yr old guy is a skilled butcher. He is fat, average height and has a short hair and beard. He runs a butcher shop and his shop is famous for the tender and fresh meat and Jin's mastery, he does his job swiftly and fluently that his work almost looks like an art and his cuts make it easier to cook and eat the meat. He has been running his shop for over 4 years and his customers kept increasing exponentially. He is famously known as the 'Butcher with a Golden Arm' by his customers as he had 3 golden stars tatooed verically on his right arm.
One fine Tuesday, as Jin was having tea during his break time in his shop, a guy approached him. He looked weirdly at Jin for having tea in a place where you can smell blood heavily and started speaking, "Hello brother, I'm Ram, a reporter, I'm really interested in taking an interview of you, are you interested?". "An interview of me?! I'm an ordinary butcher after all", said Jin. "If u are an ordinary butcher, you would not have such a crowd for you", said Ram. Jin giggled and asked, "when do u need the interview?". "I'm planning to shoot it like a documentry, I'll be here tomorrow early in the morning with my camerman".
The next day, early in the morning, around 3, Ram reached Jin'a house with his cameraman. Jin came out wearing a shirt and a lungi. "You can start doing the work which you do regularly, we will follow you and capture your work, once you get free time we will have the interview", said Ram. Jin agreed and started walknig. He led them to a barn in his backyard but the barn was as big as his house. "What place is this Jin?", asked Ram. "This is the barn that I've built, I grow my own animals for the meat, this improves the quality of my meat". "Don't you feel sad when you kill the animals that you have raised?". "All life has to die one day brother, and my job is a butcher, not a farmer. I enjoy killing them rather than feeling sad. I just grow them because I want to make sure that the quality of my meat is excellent and my customers get satisfied". He tied leashes to the neck of two young goats, one cow and a pig. "You re a muslim right, then how is the pig...?". "I don't eat pork but few of my customers buy it, it isn't different from other animals here".
He took them to a small room built on the backyard. "Now I'm going to kill these and removes their body hair, do u want shoot that too?", JIn asked. "No, I think it will be too brutal for an interview, we are not shooting a documentry, we will wait here, you call us after you finish the brutal part", said Ram. "Ok then".
Jin called them after one and half an hour. They were yawning already but Jin looked really energetic and excited. He has loaded the carcasses on a trolley, the heads were cut off, the hair has been removed and the blood has been drained out. His shop and his house were next to each other and there was gate in his backyard that acted as the passage for both. He opened the back door of his shop which led to the back room of his shop. "This is the place where I cut the carcasses into different parts". He started his work, he took each carcass and cut the parts acoording to their meat, bone and fat content, the tighs, ribs, hip, etc. His cuts were really strong and fast. Ram has never seen someone chop off a goat's leg in a single strike and it only took him five strikes to chop off the cow's leg and he did these with a style, like a martial art. "Do all butchers do it as good as you or is this a special technique of you?", asked Ram. "Ha, I don't know about others, mostly these things are done by machines but I like doing it myself and I've been training myself to do it in a special way", said Jin. "Who thoght you butchery?". "It was my father, he was butcher too, he always wanted me to become a butcher, a special one".
After chopping off he took the needed parts to the front room of his shop, this is where he does buissness. He hung the large parts in hooks and placed the remaing parts in refrigirators. "It is just 5 in the morning....do you have customers already?", asked Ram. Jin laughed and opened the shutter. There was crowd already. "My customers are worse than the flies", Jin laughed. The bussiness started and there were customers till 8.30. Jin finally settled down after a hard work. "You work really hard Jin", Ram complimented. "All this, doesn't come by luck, you have to work hard to earn it and of course, I have my fathers blessing and God's blessing too", said Jin. "Tell us about your family Jin and how they feel about you". "I have a wife, a daughter, who is studying at an art college and a son who is at 5th grade. I hope they are proud of me, because I've worked really hard to make my family sustainable". "What is the biggest goal of your life now?". "I feel my style of work is an art, and..., I want to teach this to a lot of people, butchery should become a respectable proffesion, that would be my ultimate goal for now".
FEW WEEKS LATER
But life isn't always a piece of cake for everyone, one fine Thursday, when Jin opened the shutter to start his buissness, there was a surprise for him. A meat shop right opposite to his shop, more posh, fancy looking and more hyginic. Jin was not scared about it though, he knew that he owns his customers. But still, he could see people choosing that shop over his as they also provided different kind of offers. A week passed, Jin started to feel a little insecure and his instincts told him that something terrible is approaching.
Another week passed. Jin was sitting in his shop, eyes closed, trying to ignore what is happening around him but he was interrupted by a voice, but it was not a customer but a police officer. "You are needed at the poice station", he said in a hard voice. "What is the problem, why am I needed?", asked Jin. "Just come".
Jin went with him as he had no other choice. He was taken to the Inspector. "Are u Jin Baasha?", asked the Inspector. "Yes sir". "There is complaint filed on you, A lot of people had been food poisoned, because of eating your meat, reports say that you have injecteed somee medicines to the animals for their muscle growth which has caused the food poison". Jin wasn't shocked though, he was expecting something like this to happen. But, he was filled with rage. He couldn't even hear what the officer was speaking, he felt like killing everybody there. After enquiring him, they sent him back saying that he should come whenever they ask to.
The news spread across like a forest fire, the customers he had owned started doubting on him and his mental got affected severely. After a week, the court ordered Jin to close his meat shop as most of his animals were injected with that drug. The same reporter who admired Jin's work, talked trash about him in the media. Jin's dream started fading slowly.
One night, after all this happened, there were weird noices in the backyard and Jin's daughter got woke up due to it. She switched on the torch and went to take a look at it. As she opened the main door, she saw Baasha standing there, all drenched. "Appa, why are you all wet?", she asked. "It was raining outside", said Jin. He didn't talk anything else but went in. She took a look outside but there were no signs of a rain. "Get to your bed, it is late already", Jin shouted from his room. She went to her room as soon as he said but was curious to know what had happened. In the midnight she took her torch again and went out to see what had happened. Everything looked fine in the backyard, nothing suspicious, but she smelled something stinky, it was from the barn.
She slowly opened the door, it was all dark but the ugly smell was really high. She switched on the lights, but as soon as she switched it on, she fell to the ground in fear. All the animals that were in the barn, all the animals that Jin raised, they were all dead. To be particular, they were all slaughtered. Slaughtered by the Butcher with the Golden Arm.