Fishy Tales (Tails?)

A. J. Thomas

Cleaning Fish

Who doesn’t like to eat fish?
Fish fillet, fish fry, fish mollie
Fish curry, baked fish, fish and chips
Shark fin soup; tails…?
The list is endless like the ocean
That builds up in the mouth!
Exquisite taste, like
That of so many other ‘f’s
‘Burns’ on the tongue
Of the fish-lover.
But who likes to clean fish?
(First, it’s really messy!
Whoever would like to
Clean up a mess?
Most would like to leave it
As it is and go their way
And enjoy their fish
From a seafood joint.
Second, it’s so smelly!
But, there are strangely some
Who relish the smell more
Than actually eat fish.
My friend tells me this
Gentleman goes to the fish-stalls
Walks around turning the fish
Over and over, enjoying their
Looks and smells for an hour
Then buys a small portion
Just for a purchase’s sake!)
Very few, very few indeed
Have the patience or the expertise
In cleaning fish.
If it’s a fish with scales
Covering even the eyes
And with an array of serrated
Fin-thorns, your task is
Daunting. But once
The cleaning’s done, you
Cut the fish. It’s important
To remember that fish head
Is a delicacy; don’t throw it away.
The brainy people all over the world
Eat fish-head; have it roasted,
Curried or even simply boiled…and it often
Costs much more than juicy fish-flesh

How well can you clean a fish
Which is already so clean
Swimming about in the sea?
Is it to be so cleaned,
Cleaner than
the insides of your innards?
I’m sure the fish won’t mind either way.
Then there’s fish eaten raw
Swallowed, literally
The little silver-flash disappearing down
The gullet of a hungry, pop-eyed
Fish out of water!
Watching the Koreans
And the Japanese do it
You get nausea first
Then you get so much used to it
That you can’t wait for more.
Then there’s the fish-treatment
For asthma, in Hyderabad
The baby catfish swallowed live
Will take the asthma with it
Within forty-one days.
I wish those tiny beings could
Survive to see the glee on the face
Of the erstwhile patient.

Sardine

Sardine is the same
Everywhere in the world
Even in Sardinia, further up north
By the Mediterranean.
Why did that province get this name?
Is it because its form is long,
Tapering, like a sardine?
But to think of the dead sardine
In front of me, I grow sad
Its staring, very dead
Fishy eyes….
Did it reach here
fresh from the Gaza coast?
Alive it’d have been so elegant
Cleaving the clear waters
It’d have flashed about
Like Nautilus.
The canned sardine
Sans head, tail and fins
Sautéed in brine and sunflower oil
With a chilly, eases your conscience
When you eat it.

Live, jumping sardines
In the tin-drum of the fishmonger
Back in your village during younger days.
Uncles on leave from the military
Haggling over its price.
Curried with coconut-paste and chilly,
Puzhukku of fresh-tapioca or of raw-jackfruit
Dipped in its gravy dissolving on their tongues
As we watched….
Dried, salted sardines of your childhood
Worthless fare of the poor
Roasted on live embers,
or fried in coconut oil
Along with dry red chillies
Eaten together with
boiled dry-tapioca
Witness to your privations
And raw memories of your dear ones
Who shared it, sometimes fighting
For the big, juicy piece; enticing memories….
You masticating the crisp bones
With your milk-teeth…
Sardine bridges time
In its appeal, dead and alive.

******

Notes
Visual above is a photograph of "Untitled" a painting by Girijaa Upadhyay"

A.J. Thomas is an English-language poet, fiction writer, translator and editor. He translates poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction prose from Malayalam to English, and has more than 20 titles to his credit. Hee has M.Phil, and Ph.D. degrees in English Literature (Translation Studies) from the School of Letters, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam..
As a poet and translator his works include Germination (Poetry, 1989), Aagaami Pal Ka Nirman (his poetry in Hindi translation-2010),  Bhaskara Pattelar and Other Stories, (Manas, 1993), Reflections of a Hen in Her Last Hour and Other Stories (Penguin India), both Paul Zacharia's story-cllections in translation, Keshavan’s Lamentations (Keshavante Vilaapangal, renowned novelist M.Mukundan’s premier work),  ONV Kurup’s verse-novel Ujjayini, (Rupa) among others.
He has been on the editorial team of Indian Literature, Sahitya Akademi’s literary journal, for more than 20 years as its Assistant Editor, Editor and now as its Guest Editor.
He lives in New Delhi

More by A.J. Thomas in The Beacon

Delhi, The First Time I saw You!
Visions of a Journey: “Bengal in My Blood”