Meditations on a fish tank on a rainy afternoon

 Meditations on a fish tank on a rainy afternoon

Tiny are the bottom feeders 

Tinier still the drops of rain 

Faster are the prime feeders

Oh! Watcher - what there is to gain?

Oh! Watcher - much there is to gain!

As do plants - mellow creepers

‘Bellish fellow creepers ‘out much pain 

So too fellow, there be no weepers.

But the weeper is watcher verily

For there's many a lining grate

But Watcher; there's too many grates readily 

Still that is thy fate

Tiny grates on the fish tank

Heavy crates on the river bank

Too many silver chains to yank

But being too frank

The fish tank is but a jungle 

And the jungle the world - no rumble 

To say there's none to join is fumble 

For the world's a cycle - no mumble

Addendum
My house has a fish tank which is clearly visible from the main veranda and runs under it.
Within, are a variety of fish, including mosquito-eating varieties such as carp, Gambusia, and
cartilaginous fish. My house is a bungalow, constructed in the style perpetuated during the
British period. Having discussions in the veranda in evenings is a cultural phenomenon for us. This Tirukartigai, I was sitting on the floor of the veranda, in the succinct Padmasana, and observing with interest, the transpirations inside. It was a rainy day, and we had just fed the fish their usual feed – pellets of protein. As I saw the drops of water, gifts from the heaven, splash into the puddle, I could also see various fish with their mechanical mouth movements, reach for the pellets as they dissolved. In some time, the much sought-after food ran out, and all the fish returned to their ‘daily order’. As the rain grew heavier, I could see the fish scatter about and return to the depths where there are a few aquatic plants. With another rather incisive drop of water, I saw a large cartilaginous fish reach for a smaller one and swallow it in a moment’s notice. This got me thinking. Who are we to maintain a tank of this order? To allow the preying of the weak and the thriving of the fittest. As a passive watcher, I felt rather nihilistic. Worse still, was the panging question of why I should watch these events transpire, even though they are ‘natural’. To be very clear, the fish do lay eggs, so there is a sense of population balance, yet my heart sunk in interrogation. The grates of the fish tank with their locks and chains, felt like a division, mirrored by me the rather English Indian watching with the protection of chains, the consumption of prey by beasts. Am I to weep for the suffering within, or at my own helplessness? Or is this whole exercise a waste of time, a distraction from duty? An answer, however, arrived as quickly as my doubt – perhaps a parcel from heaven, like the accompanying drops of rain. The fish tank, as a motif, is an object of veneration, it signifies samsara itself – the various cycles
of life and death. Just as the fish tank traps the fish within, and the forest traps the animals
within, samsara traps us inside, in hierarchies and cycles. Perhaps not of our own making, but definitely of our own supporting them. This realization was definitely not an answer to the ethical dilemma of zoo-keeping and animal maintenance; however, it did get me thinking about barriers and transcendence, and thus pushed me to poesy. 

Glossary

Watcher – observer
Grates, chain – those of the fish tanks
Crates – containers of fish feed
Prime feeders, bottom feeders – predatory and prey fish
Samsara – An Eastern philosophical concept, that all of life is a cyclical ocean of birth and death;
happiness and suffering and other dyads;
‘Bellish – Embellish - decorate
‘out - without