This story was shared in the "Cultures of Peace" literary fest organised by Zubaan in collaboration with Heinrich Boll Foundation at the IHC, Delhi on the 28th - 29th Jan 2010. Prominent writers/journalists included : Indrani Raimedhi, Mamang Dai, Temsula Ao, Subir Bhaumik, Sanjoy Hazarika, Ananya Guha, Pradip Phanjoubam, Arupa Kalita, Mitra Phukan, Bijoya Sawain, Rita Chowdhury, Mona Zote, Monalisa Changkija, Triveni Mathur, Rupa Chinai, Uddipana Goswami, Aruni Kashyap, Rajesh Dev, Dhiren Sadokpam and Nazneen Hussain.
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I always ensure that the desktop wallpaper of my Personal Computer has something to relate to nature. And thanks to the internet, I can find myself climbing the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro one morning while I can unbend the next day sunbathing in a beach in Queensland. Then there would be that cogitative mood when I’d prefer to take a lonely walk by an already lonely lake. In due course of time my colleagues could relate my mood with the wallpaper I had chosen for the day. Whether I was a reflection of the wallpaper or whether the wallpaper was a reflection of me was an atrocious aureole I never got into.
Fishing with rods is an art; you cannot master it with one stroke. It requires endurance beyond compare. A sharp eye and an ability to hold back your desire to pull the rod until the fish has properly caught the bait needs only the learning of time and failure. Raihan, my ill-famed uncle compared it with primitive seduction. He was always a good catch. During one of our late afternoon search for earthworm baits he asked me if I had a girlfriend. My silence was enough for him to begin his first unpaid fishing tutorial.
You ain’t gonna catch a fish if you don’t learn how to catch a girl. The excitement lies in the way you lure the fish to your bait, never revealing the hook inside. And this excitement fades off like the last specs of sunset once your catch is complete. You keep the fish in your basket, put some more bait and look for the next fish…Ah! And there are these fishes, that’d caress the line of the fishing rod, play with the bait, eat it away and yet escape the force of your upward pull. This time, it’s you who get baited into the pursuit of this particular fish. Women are a similar species. The pursuit is more fulfilling than the accomplishment. You charm a woman’s senses and kindle in her the urge to be pulled towards yourself. She may refuse you at times, but like a patient rock you need to show your indifference towards this action of hers until she begins to believe that it was she who was whining and moving towards you. At other times, just like our playful fish which escaped your hook, a woman may not look at you altogether, ignoring all your efforts to charm her. Patience gives way to desperation and finally heartache. The real art is to know when this stage of patience ends, so that you can quit and look for some other prize before desperation pulls you on a path where you lose it all.In my case, I never went fishing for the fishes. The sound of the croaking of frogs, the chirping of the birds, the sudden splash of the kingfisher, the grasses swaying in rhythm to the wind, the clear reflection of the woods in the lake, the sometimes cloudy sometimes clear skies, the howl of the foxes somewhere in the woods on the other side; in a way I found it close to living in the wallpapers of the lakes of my computer that I cherish so much. Fishing was just an excuse that I gave myself for sitting idly on the fishing bench. But then came in Raihan and all his teachings. I soon discovered that I no longer gave myself the excuses. I was learning to love fishing.
I learnt how to choose a particular bait for a particular fish. Raihan used flour balls, earthworms, small fishes, snails and even the larva of bees. He once took me to the woods to search for a beehive. We got the beehive alright but had to get a few painful stings before we could lay our hands on the larva. I had stood a close to 100 yards away from the beehive that was casually embracing a low hung branch. Raihan had an empty potato sack in his left hand and with his right hand he held out some old torn clothes hung tightly at one end of a long stick. He had covered his body to save him from the stings. Using a lighter he set the torn clothes on fire and projected the stick towards the bottom of the hive. There was more smoke than fire and as it caught up with the hive, the bees started moving out. In a moment they were everywhere, just like the bombers of Pearl Harbor. Not certain what to do, I moved back a few paces, while Raihan, still projecting the stick, hid his face in his clothes. After a few seconds, I heard him scream out ou ou ou ouuuu ei ei ei. Some bees had found his flesh through his armour and took their vengeance before going down. Raihan did not wait anymore, he let go of his face cover and in one go had the stranded beehive with its larva in the potato sack. He came running towards me followed by a trail of angry bees. I started off but one bee caught up with me and stung me in my neck. With one wade I removed it but the pain was intense. Running and panting, I cried out maayyieee maayieee.
The larva was good and we had a good time with the pain of the sting.
The day I caught my first fish, Raihan came from his side of the fishing area and said,
You got the fish alright; you’ll get a girl as well.
I just smiled at him without any pride of achievement of having been given the degree of a sure shot girl-catcher.
We hardly used to talk when we were fishing. He’d be lost in his world of women, imagining them in the swirls of his unfiltered cigarette smoke. I had once asked him why he does not take filter cigarettes. To him it was simple: he just did not want his thoughts about women to be filtered.
I’ve been fishing without a companion for the last two months. Raihan got drowned while he was fishing alone. The people in the area said that a big fish was sighted and they believed that it got Raihan’s bait, and before Raihan could realize, it pulled him underwater. The police took the believingly unbelievable story mainly because it involved no money for them. As for the family, he was hardly attached to the lot. Infact, his illicit relations with women was well known and so nobody grieved.
I saw it as an unaccomplished endeavor to win the love of the woman he never talked about, but had always hinted at in his love for fishing. Whether it was the fish or the women, or his own patience giving way to a silent desperation where he had lost it all—I wonder sometimes.
But that is an untaught fishing lesson he took to his grave.
