Beyond The Taste of an Hilsa

E. Bijoykumar Singh *

A short video film 'Ilisha Amagi Mahao by Ningthouja Lancha

Hilsa is no doubt one of the tastiest fishes I have ever tasted. My earliest memory of the taste of the fish goes back to a day in my childhood when Guru Bipin Singh was invited at our house. So plenty and delicious was Hilsa on that occasion that it remained in my sub conscious for ever.

In 2007, we went through an unforgettable experience of trying to get fresh Hilsa of Bangladesh from Agartala to Imphal across the Indigo check point. Our Pengba and Khabak are no less tasty but definitely not as romanticised as Hilsa.

Oja Kunjamohon's "the taste of an Hilsa" is no doubt a great story. I read it again and again but I always felt there must be something beyond the 'taste of the Hilsa fish'.

The theme of the story cannot be bounded by a river and a fish. When I read the many obituaries of this litterateur, I again began thinking about the meanings of the story. A write up by Londonbala in Poknapham even had the backdrop of the genesis of the story where my father E. Nilakanta Singh, fascinated by the Barak, inspired the author to write something related with the Barak River.

The author admitted in the interview that the story was based on the experience of a poor neighbouring family. I found that not very convincing. Did the poet mean the Barak as a majestic river only? I became more excited when I read the short sketch of his life by Saratchand Thiyam distributed on his shradha ceremony. He had a Marxist streak in his mind. At one time he used to be overawed by our Janneta Irawat. The story was written after he was released from preventive detention. Then, everything seemed to fall in place. This realisation raised the stature of the author even higher.

What I am going to discuss is the universality of the theme of the story and its relevance today. The wonderful taste of Hilsa stands for something everyone holds dear; freedom. The father and son duo, Chaoba and Mani, represent the underprivileged and dispossessed class. They toil to get something they need only to be taken away by somebody.

Again by under privileged and dispossessed we mean any one who has been deprived of his rightful share. Who does not love freedom? What do we exactly mean by freedom? If we interpret freedom in the narrow sense as the ability to do what one likes, just as the father and son duo had caught the fish from the river, others could have snatched it without going through the niceties of selling and buying.

You can fish from the river but you cannot snatch the catch from the fisherman. It is the choice of the fisherman. That gives an idea of our concept of freedom. There is responsibility. There is selflessness. By freedom I mean the ability to develop ourselves to the fullest extent without any restraint. It is the ability to develop without harming anyone. We are definitely better off and no one is worse off. We are in a Pareto efficient situation where no one can be made better off without making someone worse off. It is different from ability to do what we like.

What does freedom mean to someone in an independent country who had just been released from preventive detention? Is not such a person as underprivileged and dispossessed as Mani and his father Chaoba? This feeling must have played a role in the emergence of the story. Their poverty symbolises the challenges they face. Their pre-dawn activities symbolise men's struggle for freedom. It was basically a gamble.

I consider gambling in a livelihood a tragedy when you do not know from where your next meal will be coming. The father and son duo wanted the fish desperately for different reasons. The father wanted his married daughter to relish it and his son Mani wanted to have it simply because it was tasty. A leader wants freedom for his people because freedom is a necessary condition for enjoying the best things in life- in whatever manner we interpret it. Mani's married sister stands for the people.

Freedom is to the people what the Hilsa is to Mani's married sister. The Barak represents the Karmabhumi which gives us all our requirements. The visits of the elderly person of the Naorem family and Kanhai stand for challenges which they could handle. It shows how they try to fend off the onslaught on their freedom. When Thaninjao visited Chaoba's residence in search of a fish for his daughter Thaballei, his resistance crumbled.

The father had to sell the fish despite his wish not to sell it. There was no rice in the kitchen. Chaoba reacted when his daughter Tampha and his ailing wife told him about this by deciding to sell it to Thaninjao. It was a lovely coincidence that both fathers wanted the fish not for themselves but for their daughters.

Just as the father and son duo were compelled to part with their Hilsa fish, everyday we have to compromise with our freedom - we have to part with it. We have got it but like the father- son duo cannot enjoy it. Their dreams were dashed. We have state and non state actors questioning our freedom. Indeed every generation has had the experience of their Hilsa being literally snatched .

The experience of the author of being taken to jail a few hours before the first day in school of his eldest daughter must have been as poignant as the feeling of little Mukta when he saw the fish being taken away. It is the same poignancy that marks the frittering away of the fruits of development where we toil without any reward.

How sensible is a social system where everyone has a right to work and a few only have a right to the fruits of labour? The story, thus, transcends the boundaries imposed by the river and taste of the fish. It will remain meaningful for all times to come.