To a stranger, the people of Bhuapur upazila in Tangail might like to say proudly that they have the second biggest cattle market in the country.
What they would probably not tell him – because more than 200 families are involved with this and hence it is a common thing for them – that they also have hotels for cattle.
On the surface, one of these looks like a giant cowshed. People can be seen feeding grass or hay to scores of cows tied with ropes inside bamboo cubicles.
A cubicle to a cow is like a hotel room to a human. The place is called a hotel because it provides food and accommodation for cattle.
Say a trader brings 40 cows from another district to the Gobindashi market. At the end of a market day, say, the trader is left with 10 cows.
In comes the cattle hotels. A night stay for a cow costs Tk15. The wholesale rate – usually for a truck-full of cattle – is Tk400. The hotel owners arrange food, water and care for the “boarders” in return.
“These hotels are like saviours,” said Zakir Hossain, who came from Bogra district. “It is not always possible to sell all the cows on a single market day…So when I have unsold cows, I take them to these hotels. If these were not here, I would have faced huge losses.”
For more than 200 families, whose homesteads are located in the surrounding villages of the Gobindashi market, running cattle hotels is a round-the-year full-time profession.
Just like the Gabtoli cattle market in Dhaka, Gobindashi is also permanent. At other times of the year, the market usually sits on Sundays and Thursdays. So, the hotels provide accommodation for the days in between.
Understandably, the business and busy-ness of these hotels increase manifold before the Eid-ul-Azha when the market runs for weeks at a stretch.
Iman Ali, owner of a cattle hotel, said he started small 25 years ago, but his business has now expanded.
Local cattle owner Dulal Sarker said it is a lucrative business, but if the expense of bringing cattle to Gobindashi could be reduced, more traders would have come here and the hotel business would have thrived further.
