A childhood gone by and a bucketful of memories- Fishy tales

Every now and then snippets from my past make its way into my mind, getting me reflective over all the sweet memories.

I was in the fifth or sixth grade when I remember taking walks with my Dad; hand in hand, my stubby fingers enclosed in his large ones. We hardly had any idle chatter going on between us as he was the silent types and we would busy ourselves in watching the surroundings around. A certain kind of quietude filled up our walks and now when I look back, I felt there was a supreme grandiose attached to those walks, merely by the sights we got to encounter.

The roads those days used to be particularly dusty but it was a treat to watch a rare Ambassador car zooming  past us crisscrossing in those narrow lanes leaving a trail of dust and billowy black smoke behind. Our local cobbler with his thick bushy moustache and sunken eyes waved out to us whenever we passed by his little shop painted a pretty fluorescent green. It was ensconced in a corner with tufts of grass growing all around it. I think even the cobbler then was part of my so called acquaintance list, solely by the number of visits I kept making to his shop to mend broken slippers. 

Dad & I often stepped out of our house to run errands which either included going to the bank or for dropping letters into the post box that my mother had written in her dialect to her sister in Mangalore or it was simply about planning a visit to the fish market.

The fish market was out of bounds for me to otherwise go and explore on my own. So on Sunday mornings when Dad suggested a visit, my eyes would shine with excitement..

The fisher-women; Maharashtrian ladies clad in their Navari saris, their broad beautiful butts staring hard at our face were the nicest. Loud mouthed, with their gold chains jangling around their necks they called out to my Dad in their raspy voices, 

“Bhau ya na ikde, taaze  bombil, surmai, bangda, khekda gheta ka…”

Dad would smile at them but at the same time reluctantly shaking his head he would keep moving further. Trudging on close heels behind him I tried to keep pace with his hurried steps.

Finally we would come to a spot where Dad's regular fisher lady was found seated on a tiny stool, with a string of fresh mogra flowers wrapped around her oiled bun and lips that were painted a jarring red. Supposedly, her catch was always considered to be fresh and on whom my Dad had enormous faith in. He immediately got on to the task of inspecting the fishes. For Bangdas he checked if the fish carried a metallic sheen on it and for surmais, she gladly obliged by allowing Dad to check it's gills; if they were a deep red in colour he pronounced their freshness by nodding his head slightly in agreement.

While all this was happening, I sometimes caught sight of black crabs hobbling around, leaving the comfort of their woven straw baskets taking a walk to nowhere. Anxious looking kittens kept watching their every move, but at the same time they used to go and purr near the fisher-women persuading them to part with chopped fish heads.

The whole buzz of the place with men and women haggling about prices being too steep, rancid odors emanating from a variety of fishes, the hustle and bustle left me spellbound.

A bunch of hungry crows cackled loudly from top, seated on wooden ledges.

 The muddy stone floors, filled with grime and remains of dead fish were enough to nauseate anyone, but for me it was a thrilling adventure all along.

With the gullets of the fish removed, their tails hacked off, the fisher-woman would make precise thin slices and double wrap them neatly in polythene bags. An assortment of crabs was packed  in a separate one. Dad & I would then leave the place with our bags full and our hearts seeping with joy. A wee bit of trepidation used to bother me, thinking about those live crabs getting hurled against each other, jostling for space in the cramped polythene bags. 

I would get excited to reach home and showoff our booty to Mom. But more than me, I think it was Dad eagerly waiting to catch Mum's expression on seeing the fish that was considered as a stamp of approval. Being raised in a coastal land, Mum was considered a fish aficionado of sorts and hence was famous in expressing her pleasure or displeasure by observing the contents of the plastic bags.

 Also, by then, I was old enough to read her expressions well. When only vegetables were bought, she let out a smirk and the vegetable bags got plonked on the dining table, without even a second glance. But any fish items in that bag, was enough to lighten up her face with the brightest of smiles. I remember relatives long after visiting our house wherein lunch used to be a lavish affair, with a delectable spread of fried fish, curried fish, prawns cooked in a tangy masala would reminisce about all the soul food that mum had cooked for them and how they had immensely relished it.

Soon, Mum would get down to peeling the polythene bag and exploring its contents. Occasionally, when crabs were bought, our place turned into a riot house. One by one they would come out of the plastic bags, crawling all over our two by two kitchen space. A few used to go hiding behind the grinding stone and some found solace behind wooden shelves. There were the brave ones who mindlessly roamed without a care and unfortunately were the first ones to get swooped up by my Dad who wasted no time in getting their claws clipped and dropping them in hot water.

Once, I perfectly remember, of having an insidious desire to pick up one of the crabs and keep it as my pet by hiding it inside my book shelf. I imagined taking it to school the next day and wondered about my best friend rolling her eyes in excitement on discovering my precious find. 

But then all my thoughts had come tumbling down that day, as I morosely stood watching Dad drop the last of the crabs in hot water. 

What followed then was a finger licking crab curry prepared by my mother. 

With all our tummies full I later would roll in bed on lazy Sunday afternoons, sometimes clutching my stomach in pain on having eaten like a glut; greed outpowering my tiny appetite otherwise. Mum would immediately make a concoction of jeera water and make me take slow sips of it.

By evening, I was perfectly fine, urging Dad to venture out for yet another one of our memorable walks.