Kamikaze

No body knows where they came from or how did they get there , but as legend says even if you want tiger milk you get it in SS Hogg market , or as we commonly call it New Market. Kushal taking a stroll down the bi lanes of new market found them alive in a fish tank. Two bright pinkish Silver salmons.
Something passed through Kushal's cynical mind , and he bought the tank and yes with the fishes.
There were two of them one large almost a 30 kilogram giant, another a small puny baby perhaps.
While keeping them on his drawing room corner, th middle aged lonesome bachelor thought of giving the fishes their names. They would now be his companions. Two names that some how rang a bell was some thing he was fascinated by this afternoon. While reading the book on Japanese world war history. He read about the Kamikaze Pilots , who would crash their aircraft into a ships boiler to sink it, and if they fail they would commit Hara-kiri , our takes one own life to restore honour.
He named the young one kamikaze and the older one Hara-kiri.
As time went by, it became more obvious that the younger one was getting Kushal attention more than the giant.
Yes a 30 Kg fish might seem a wonder, but some how through his loneliness he preferred the baby. This had disheartened Hara-kiri, as he felt he should steal the show. When ever people visited Kushal, they were amused mt hara's sheer size, but over some time even they paid more attention to the kids behaviour and playfulness .
I will get him some day he said to himself, the kid is doing this in purpose to humiliate me, the day i get my chance ill kill him.
But never could he have thought his chance would come sooner than he had anticipated.
Nandita walked in the other day. The moment she saw the salmons, she started laughing. You know Kushal she exclaimed, your this sense of absurdity made me leave you, who would try to pet a 30 kg salmon, other than an oaf like you. You have not changed have you.
Even if you had told me that you have kept them to make a good continental feast out of it, but knowing you it does not suit your taste.
Nandita always did that to him, humiliate him, but some how with he could never stand up against her, rather gullible enough to follow the same.
This time was no anomaly either.
He took out his car with the tank in his rear seat. The safari drove straight towards Princep ghat.
Standing at the banks of Hoogly river he glanced one last time at the fishes. They have been is companion for around three months now. Kamikaze was bigger now than what he came as , but yet small enough for Hara-kiri to kill him.
There was a silence in Kushal's eyes. He was doing yet again doing a spineless act knowingly, where his emotions for Nandita overwhelmed that for the fishes.
Splash they went into the water.

Hara-kiri had been waiting for this moment for ages, a moment when Kushal's eyes where not on them, the moment he could avenge his humiliation and agony created by kamikaze. A humiliation that never was.

Scratch , there goes your pectoral , and here is one your tail. He attacked Kamikaze with all his venom.
But to give him a slow painful fearsome death, left him alive.
With a gash in his tail and a broken pectoral fin, the young salmon was in this alien territory which he had never seen or thought of. His world was the tank, where he could play around. The river was less of freedom and agony galore for him. His whole purpose in life from now was to run away from the only other fish he ever knew: Hara-kiri. One day during on of his stints in running away he bumped into a fish who though smaller but looked similar to them. A telapia it was, a common river water fish of Hoogly, from the same genre as Salmons.
You look new here, we have not seen much oof your kind here. You must be like Hilsas,who come to fresh water to lay eggs and go it seems. I dont know replied Kami, i have never been a river before, I dont know what i am , i just know i am alive. Yes Alive said the telapia, our only meaning of life is staying alive, to remain away from the nets of the fishermen and jawas of bigger fishes.
You also need to eat, dont you, what food do you have , well we usually have coloured balls for food answered kami. No real food like the worms , talking of worms see that worm there near the surface, thats the food you should look for. Ill show you how to hunt, and the telapia swam towards the worm, and moment he bit it the the jerk of the fishing rod pulled it outside. Kami was amazed to the point of fright and swam as fast as he could only his fate was against him, it was but a conspiracy he thought, as he swam right into hara. Food!!!! exclaimed hara, and bit Kami's tail . Kami fought for his life, he managed to wriggle past Hara but he knew the damage has been done, his fins where broken so was his tail. Within no time Hara would get him.
This was it he thought, lets take the bull by the horns.
he went out when Hara was looking behind went straight for his gills, he bit hard but damage was not much. It was not damage he was looking, he wanted Hara's attention
that he had got. give me five yards, give me five yards. the strength for five yards
, he swam as fast as he could but his tail was giving up on him. Yes he was there, but snap went his back as the jaws of the larger salmon clamped against it.
But he was there he bit the worm , and off in jerk went the fishing rod, taking hara along with him. Kamikaze had done what the Japanese aircraft fighters did , take the larger ships down with its self destruction. Where as Hara-kiri, committed suicide by bullying Kamikaze, a suicide that was forced on him for not being honourable.

A Different Take

I was seating in this auto-rickshaw back seat today.. when a young lady about my age came up to the Auto , and sat next to the driver on the right hand side. Suddenly i realised that i had not got out and given her my seat like i used to earlier during my school days.
With the wake of the whole womens liberalisation movement, i suddenly find it to be impertinent to the same. Don't get me wrong here. Not that i am not a chauvinist but yet, i do not do this as an act of chauvinism.. But as an extreme act of feminism. In the sense if i had got down from my seat and given it to her it would be as if i was saying lady you are fragile enough to not be able to seat in front seat, and she would have not liked it at all.
Hence to not demean her i do not leave my seat these days. Its different when it comes to senior citizens. I would have done that in either cases, without considering their sexes.

Similarly i would disagree to the concept of constituencies reserved for women candidates.. its like telling them you are not competent enough to fight with men when fitted against you.