Oh yes! Thats the fateful day Nalini, in a spurt of love and affection, (Poo, I love you!) gifted me a fish tank with FOUR "gold"fish. (I wonder if she put the gold connect when she got them for me anyways).
When the fish came to the surface gasping for air, I was so frigging scared. I felt like I was almost losing my C&H collection. (HAHA! Yes, I have the original hardbound collection of three heavy books that I prop open on my legs and run my fingers over the smooth glossy paper). Big Huge Ouch! I got a filter, a thermal shit and a cool light cover for the tank.
The fish din't make it. One of them just listed, flipped, the stomach bloated and it floated the next day Dead! I buried it in the flower bed below my apartment. Stuck a tooth-pick on the grave and hummed a dirge.
The rest followed in its wake. And all the 32 fishes (I obviously din't put 32 of them in one go into the tank. It was in batches of 4-6). One by one I flushed each one of them, sans the one I buried, through the toilet seat. Despite extensive googling, expert advice from ex-fellow fish keepers, aquarists I couldn't establish what was killing my fishes. I am sure you'd beg to differ.
Now, why 32 fishes?
a) My mom wanted to get back a good ROI. She sponsored the paraphernalia which were supposed to help the fish survive.
b)Storing a fish tank made if glass is a tad more difficult than putting fishes into the tank, netting them and flushing them down the toilet seat.
There are two important things I learnt.
a. Fishes are boring. They don't even mutate after you put blue and green colored solutions into the tank.
b. NEVER FUCKING EVER GIFT YOUR FRIEND A FISH!
For all those of you who've missed my fishes
@Poo: The fishes aint lonely in fishy-hell anymore.
@Deepu: I've a strong intuition the first lot of my four fishes committed suicide rather than face social abuse because of their christened names. You christened them Laka Laka Laka.
@Monish: Don't overfeed your fishes and make them lazy and fat. Mine almost reached critical mass stage the first day you fed them. I had to starve them to get them back into shape.
@Viv: The fish wasn't as smart as you attributed it to be. It saw straight through you.
@Manish: A lonely fish in a bowl is a bad idea.
@Nisha: Fishes (male/female) didn't give you kissies. You misread the signs. They were only sucking air. Yeah humans might do that while smooching but no! my fishes weren't giving you flying kisses. NO!
@Appu: Don't ever think of Apollo fish. The threat still hangs.
@Nalini: I realise the whole idea of giving me the tank was for to me to store up memories and have something to remember you by while you were gone. But hey! you were there for the next birthday too. Lost purpose :)
@Hitesh: Pigeons or birds of any kind are bad enough. Watch Birds if you need convincing. I spotted similar signs in the pigeons who stare at me sitting on the window ledge.
P.S : Get me a Duck-Billed Platypus the next time. I ain't that bad with pets you know.
P.P.S : Is your fish voyeuring, eavesdropping or getting you know boring of sorts. My tank (aka the suicide booth)'s free. I charge 5 Rs. per fish. Death gauranteed. Nobody can ever trace it back to you because the cause is still a mystery.
Fishes are tweaky scums. Mine tried to converse with my mom. See what happened to them.
Call it intuitive. But I think I am gonna be eaten by a shark 32 degress off the coast of Miami :)
