Fish!! It is the sign of prosperity and good luck for we east Indians. We even have to carry a big fish when the groom goes to the brides house for getting married. And a bride is judged for her skll by how expert she is in scaling and cutting a fish after she comes to the new house after her marriage.The word itself bring back so many related memories. Right from my childhood I have seen how fishermans used to catch fishes from our pond. Above that my dad is an expert of fishing using fish rod which we call 'borshi'. He used to take out some old bread from fridge, soak it and convert that into dough, mix ant eggs and etc to make it more delicious and catchy for fishes and then used to use that as a trap. I have seen my dad catching 'telapia' fish with his hand while swimming. And not only catching fishes, he loves feeding people with good sumtous meal having different fish preparations.
So every evening that was his favourite passtime to fish for sometime. Even I used to go and sit beside him and observe his fondness and dedication towards this game. I have heard from thakurma that when our economic condition was not very good, and if we used to get surprise guests like my pishos ( husbad of my father's sisters), thakurma used to go to the pond and keep a fishing rod or used to ask my dad to catch a fish and she used to make a feast for the guest with those fishes. I heard from my grandmother that fishing was his passion right from his childhood. When he was very young, he used to spend afternoons catching fishes. It seems once it happened so that while catching fishes with a rod, the sharp iron hook attached to the thread got fixed in the skin of his head. And while trying to take it out, it got fixed making the whole thing worse. So the only way remaining to take it out was to cut it. So he came to boro jethu and boro jethu ( fully nervouse and tensed looking at the blood flowing out of his head) took him to the doctor. While the doctor was about to operate it out, to everybodies surprise he told the doctor, to take out the hook intact so that he can use that again . He also assured the doctor that for that if he get more hurt it is not a problem and he is ready to bear that.
Sometimes, when baba used to call fihserman to catch fishes, it used to be real fun. There were different techniques for that. One was by using small nets and trap around 10-12 fishes out of which one or two used t be big. But the other type was by using a special net called 'bera Jal' that used to almost cover the whole pond and thats why huge number of fishes used to get trapped. I used to spend the whole morning watching the whole activity and enjoying every moment about that. specially the small mishes that used to get caught along with big fishes and the shells were my main object of interest. Those sells which I learnt during my graduation , called unio were used to feed the ducks we used to have as pet then in our house.
So every evening that was his favourite passtime to fish for sometime. Even I used to go and sit beside him and observe his fondness and dedication towards this game. I have heard from thakurma that when our economic condition was not very good, and if we used to get surprise guests like my pishos ( husbad of my father's sisters), thakurma used to go to the pond and keep a fishing rod or used to ask my dad to catch a fish and she used to make a feast for the guest with those fishes. I heard from my grandmother that fishing was his passion right from his childhood. When he was very young, he used to spend afternoons catching fishes. It seems once it happened so that while catching fishes with a rod, the sharp iron hook attached to the thread got fixed in the skin of his head. And while trying to take it out, it got fixed making the whole thing worse. So the only way remaining to take it out was to cut it. So he came to boro jethu and boro jethu ( fully nervouse and tensed looking at the blood flowing out of his head) took him to the doctor. While the doctor was about to operate it out, to everybodies surprise he told the doctor, to take out the hook intact so that he can use that again . He also assured the doctor that for that if he get more hurt it is not a problem and he is ready to bear that.
Sometimes, when baba used to call fihserman to catch fishes, it used to be real fun. There were different techniques for that. One was by using small nets and trap around 10-12 fishes out of which one or two used t be big. But the other type was by using a special net called 'bera Jal' that used to almost cover the whole pond and thats why huge number of fishes used to get trapped. I used to spend the whole morning watching the whole activity and enjoying every moment about that. specially the small mishes that used to get caught along with big fishes and the shells were my main object of interest. Those sells which I learnt during my graduation , called unio were used to feed the ducks we used to have as pet then in our house.
Hmm, to this I remember, even I used to love the ducks house that used to be there in our house. feeding the ducks, making there room with Hays to keep it warm, putting them in there house every evening, checking early in the morning if egg is there was fact of curiosity for me.And believe me the taste of those duck eggs were just amazing.
There were some rules in our house like to make children's healthy, we were served with fishes like 'magur' and 'singh' macher jhol. Those anaerobic fishes have loads of bloods and hence are very healthy. Since I was not very healthy in my childhood my diet mostly used to include those fishes.
Still now we have the pond as it is in gopinath's house but the duck house is not there. baba still take some out almost every evening to take a stroll to that house and spend some time catching fishes. Even though I am far away, I can visualize every moment of it.
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