Ghazipur Mandi: Filth, Feathers & Living Hell

AT Just past 3 am, the first truck arrives—its towering stack of wire crates squealing and shaking under the weight of thousands of live chickens.

- SHEKHAR SINGH @ New Delhi

The Ghazipur poultry market, a key hub for the wholesale poultry trade in the capital, is already awake. Flashlights dart in the darkness, middlemen shout prices and buyers elbow through narrow, slippery lanes to claim their stock before daybreak. By sunrise, the stench of blood and decay hangs thick in the air. Kites circle low overhead, hoping for scraps. Stray dogs scavenge around heaps of discarded feathers, entrails and bones.

In gumboots slick with muck, workers pull birds from cramped cages and slit their throats in swift, practiced motions. The viscera is tossed into handcarts, blood swept away with brooms and trickling water, forming crimson puddles that run into open drains.