There I was talking to our Gouramis again. We chose not to name them. In my husband's neighboring village in Garhwal, they have a tradition of calling all their pet animals by their "real" names. For example: Even if they had five dogs, each one would be addressed as "kutta". Any rooster would be called out as "murge, chalo idhar aao" and so on. Amused, I decided to call our pair of golden Gouramis as "Machlee" and "Fishy" respectively. The female is "Machlee" and the male is "Fishy" (chuckle). It seems they respond to their names. Gouramis are known to recognize their owners. However, I'm sure ours identify with their names as well.
An enthusiastic dog trainer, my husband has not spared the fishes even. (Last he trained the regular pigeons at our home on how they should stop eating our plants. They have shown good progress since then and so have our plants.) Machlee and Fishy put up a show every time Vipul goes close to the fish bowl and calls out to them in a peculiar voice. Quickly they'll start swimming with the rhythmn. When he calls out to stop (in the same tone), they pause and then the show begins again. At the end of it, they gently swim between the blades of grass to come and kiss the tip of his finger dipped in the water. Fishy is an aggressive kisser while Machlee is shy and gentle. When you sing to them you can almost see them transform into the calm and quiet being they never are!
Don't you think fishes are the best pet to have. Their stay content in their water world. Feeding is simple. They co-operate with you when you are still learning how to change the water (well, atleast the gouramis do; but goldfish can get tricky.) So finally after spending months of thinking on what I should gift animal-kingdom-lover-husband on his birthday (two months ago) I zeroed in on Machlee and Fishy (No, I like dogs but I'm not ready to have them around just now.) and what a wonderful choice it was!
Feel like a song? Come over and sing for Machlee. Nothing's Fishy!
