Our Funarena!

(Continued from the last story on a fish called Sol in Assam!)   Decades back I was working in my hometown on my first job assignment. My office happened to be very near to the riverside and therefore, the local fish market at the jetty that thrived in selling fresh and live fish directly caught from the river was within walking distance. My mother’s constant errand had been to buy some fresh and ‘jumping’ local fish on my way back home from office. I wanted to on many occasions, but every time felt too bored to stroll down to the market and initiate a buying that invariably involved touching and ‘feeling’ the fishes on show.   One day I made a resolve to fulfill her long-standing wish. So, after office hours I went to that local fish market and indulged myself fully in the pre-buying spree of seeing around. Really! The fishes there were very fresh with some of them alive and jumping, literally. There were many choices before me and I had to make up my mind. Unfortunately, I

Just when, 7 o’clock in the morning, I was about to get up the rain started. I always loved the sounds made by the raindrops on the tin-sheeted roof of out village home, and was always lulled into sleep, the audio suddenly making the hot summers feel pleasantly cooler. That morning was no exception, and as the audio reached a crescendo I, just a ten-year-old embodiment at that time, rolled over on my side tucking in my knees close to my chest and prepared for some more windfall slumber. But the reality shook me up: that was a school day and the morning occurrence was no justification for skipping the classes.   My cousin, a year older to me, sounded the wake-up call. An errand normally my grandfather used to undertake almost every working morning with painful consistency, that is say, his wake-up calls used to get louder and louder till the target had to succumb to it, with a sullen face or not he never cared about. That morning my grandfather left home very early on business to th