Fishy Tales

Watching fishes lazily swim by...

Not one fish but many delight my heart every morning. I had bought a pair of small goldfish and two pairs of black fish. The shop owner had told me not to expect the gold fish to breed as they needed more space and my tiny rock garden wasn’t enough to encourage them to reproduce. Well, just watching my black beauties float past was enough for me. The gold fish appeared to be shy and hid under the leaves of the lotus.

Then one fine day I found Bahadur, R.Singh and R.swaroop deep in discussion over the pond. What happened, we have been calling out for a long time? There were tiny insect like creatures wriggling in the pond. The debate was ‘are they mosquitoes or tadpoles?’ There were hundreds of these tiny things. After a few days it became clear that they were fishes! Now I have mud coloured, peach with black spots and even loads of gold fishes! There were some with peacock colored fins or tails!

The black ones remain the dominant ones. I kept count till the fifth generation, and then I gave up. Lots of snails also arrived. So my rock garden is teeming with life.

There is a sense of loss when they go during winter or extreme summer. Yet hope springs again as I bring some more new ones and watch with awe and wonder….