Robbery in Bank Colony

The illustrated version (courtesy TINKLE) of the story I had posted some months ago -on 27th April 2005 to be precise.

When I had gone to Kolatta in December - to Som's wedding reception - on the way back, at the airport we were timepass browsing in the bookstall when I picked up a TINKLE and lo! it had my story in it. Felt really good. Needless to say bought the book on the spot. And two other issues of TINKLE for good measure.

Later when I went home my sister was telling me that when she went to the beauty parlour she saw a kid reading my story - my sister proudly told the kid that her brother had written the story.

Its a nice feeling knowing that thousands of kids (and maybe some adults) all over India and the world are reading something I wrote. I have yet to receive any fan mail though :-)

There is nothing death-like about dead fish. Maybe because they don't have arms or legs or feathers or fur, their bodies are so continuous , so firm, so compact, like fruits or vegetables. Maybe because they don't have a tongue to stick out. Oh yes, and probably because they don't shut their eyes in death. And maybe because of their stainless-steel gleam, the glossy exterior - not to be seen in birds or animals - caused by millions of years of continuous washing.

Even dried fish look so aesthetic, they look as if someone crafted them out of porous, flaky wood. Not at all like mummified dead bodies. And the eyes just don't die.

These days whenever I go home I make it a point to visit the fish market, and there see these basketfuls of fish gleaming silver in the sun. Fish of all shapes and sizes and some with such exotic patterns on them that you wonder what need of natural camouflage might have necessiated that evolution. Nothing thrills me so much as the sight of a Pompfret and not just because I might be able to eat it.

Anyways here's the painting that inspired this post: Van Gough's Still Life With Mackerels, Lemons and Tomatoes . One of the two fish does look a bit dead, I admit, because Van Gough has placed it upside down and put its mouth open.