About ‘It’.

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‘It’.

I would creep across the darkened house to reach the room overlooking the pond, usually on bright moonlit nights.

Every household in this quaint little town in Assam boasted a pond. Since Daddy Strongest always wanted to be different from the pack and breaking with custom, our pond was behind the house. Every fish- loving Assamese (which is everyone) will earnestly expound the merits and the absolute necessity of having hundreds of fish live in their front yards.

But, I digress!

I would settle down behind one of the barred windows in the room overlooking the pond and wait. There would be the complete silence of people sleeping. The reflection of the silvery moonlight on the pond was strong enough to hurt my eyes. I would shiver at the sound of jackals howling close by. Every sound was magnified ten-fold. I would want to be warm. But I couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, miss a chance to see ‘It’. If I was lucky, ‘It’ would put up a show and I would have a ringside view!

As I patiently waited, my little brain would conjure up many a fanciful scene. I, who had not glimpsed the Sea (and certainly not the Ocean) except in books, would want to sit in a boat like the old man, not battling a giant Marlin, but discussing life’s difficulties with the great beast[1]! I would ask the giant white whale what he truly thought of the men relentlessly pursuing it[2]. Maybe I had my own lake monster[3] in the pond and I could ride on it’s back.

‘It’ always makes its presence felt by a loud slap (a loud slap like sound, that is)!

I would be jolted out of my reveries and watch with awe the huge shadow leaping out from the murky depths of the pond, obliterating the moonlight on the surface. As ‘It’ falls back into the water with a loud splash, I am presented a large broadside view of speckled silver. The show is over and ‘It’ returns to the murky depths of the pond whence ‘It’ came. If you think about it, it is indeed the shortest show on earth, all of about 15 seconds. I pad back through the darkened house and get into bed.

‘It’ had to be a fish. Even I, with a propensity for constant bouts of fanciful thinking, much more than the ones described earlier, accepted the fact. But nobody knew what ‘It’ was or how ‘It’ came to be in our pond. I would ask now and then but those were busy days for Daddy Strongest and Mother Dearest, who certainly did not have time to indulge my pestering, what with work and taking care of Sister Sweetest and I!

I would sit for hours by the pond with my little homemade rod and reel. No, I did not harbour any thoughts of capturing ‘It’. Any fanciful thought of battling a huge beast just like the man out in the Sea was fleeting and quickly dispelled[4]. I just wanted to see ‘It’ in daylight and solve the mystery (remember, Enid Blyton is my hero?). I was always disappointed and the only reward for my long vigils was a few tiny fish that I did indeed reel in. I gifted these to Mother Dearest.

Then, just like that, one day a few years later, Daddy Strongest announced that he would fill up the pond to make way for a vegetable garden. Our family is not overly theatrical and so I reacted to the news in the worst way I knew how, I sulked. Did Daddy Strongest even care about all the living beings in the pond and ‘It’? Apparently not! I was devastated.

Work began the very next day and I came back home from school to find a greatly shrunken pond with just a few square meters of water in the center. The four despicable men working on filling up the pond had also dredged the bottom so the small patch of water was frothing and bubbling with living beings. I flung my school bag aside and flew down the stairs. Where was ‘It’- what happened to ‘It’? A serene Daddy Strongest and even more serene Grandfather Beloved (who was visiting) sat by on easy chairs chatting and watching the proceedings. I just stood there, unable to speak, feeling not in the slightest bit serene. Whilst I shot all six men the worst looks I could muster, Daddy Strongest gleefully informed me that they had found a magnificent creature in the pond and it was still alive deep in the small patch of water- I would just have to wait to see it. Daddy Strongest also patiently explained the plan going forward- they would finish filling up the pond after all the living beings in it were caught (and killed and eaten, I thought to myself furiously)! It was then that I launched into theatrics, catching everybody completely by surprise. I burst into tears, raged and finally pleaded to let the living beings live. I would still have ‘It’ in my life somehow. Daddy Strongest was so taken aback with my antics that he immediately instructed the four despicable men to dig up a smaller pond towards the back of the house and put the living beings there.

It was almost dark by the time they took ‘It’ out of what was by now, an even smaller patch of water. ‘It’ was big! ‘It’ was as tall as me! ‘It’ was as majestic a creature as I had imagined ‘It’ to be! ‘It’ had to be lifted out of the water by all the four despicable men! As they passed by me, ‘It’ stared at me balefully with rheumy eyes, which I knew right then, would haunt me forever. I tearfully joined the rear of the procession from one patch of water to the other. ‘It’ was lowered into the freshly dug mini pond and safe for the moment.

‘It’ was a Sitol Fish[5], a highly prized and much sought after delicacy in Eastern India. And ‘It’ was the largest anybody had ever seen.

I rushed back from school the next day and spent many hours sitting by the mini pond talking to ‘It’ about life’s difficulties. ‘It’ did not surface but I knew ‘It’ was there. I would follow the same routine for the next few days till one day I returned from school to a hive of activity in the house.

I peeped in from outside and saw great chunks of bloody meat being prepared for distribution around the neighbourhood. I knew it right then, they had killed ‘It’. I threw my school bag into the storm drain outside the house and ran far far away.

It was whispered for long afterwards that nobody ate much or any of the meat- they had never tasted fish so foul.

[1] Inspiration drawn from ‘The Old Man and the Sea’- Ernest Hemingway.

[2] Inspiration drawn from ‘Moby-Dick’- Herman Melville.

[3]Inspiration drawn from the ‘Loch Ness Monster’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness

[4] Supra 1.

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitala_chitala