Saline Reads and Fishy recalls

Have been trying to read "Life of Pi" for over 2 months now. It's pretty boring so far. I'm on page 189, and it is not getting better... so what the hell is this guy doing trying to outwit a tiger in the middle of the Pacific ocean on a lifeboat? I don't much care for descriptions of a hyena eating a zebra alive on the lifeboat either .... what with ripping its stomach open and munching on its intestines. Yuck! I thought that The Kite Runner was gruesome in its own manner, and I certainly wasn't looking forward to imagining incapacitated animals being eaten alive by hungrier ones.

Whatever happened to all the pleasant books? We need more vegetarian authors methinks :)

Having said all that, this reminds of the time a friend and I took a boat ride and went about 5 km into the Arabian sea off the coast of Trivandrum. Mighty spendid! The fisherman who took us out there insisted on me holding a line ... sure enough, those were luckier days and the poor fish took the bait in less than a couple of minutes. I was applauded for my dumb luck and I guess in some ways the misfortune of the fish. As a pious vegetarian I requested the fisherman to throw the fish back into the water but he said something about it bringing him bad luck. I debated arguing with him, but I didn't fancy a 5KM swim back to the shore.

It was an interesting day, as I recall. The fisherman and his mates pushed the motor boat out into the water and alongwith my friend, and myself almost six or seven of the fisherman's friends got into the boat. I'm not happy with crowding at the best of times, and my visions of quietude and solace on the water was busted immediately. When we asked the fisherman why we had so many people come in for the ride, he simply said that it would take all those people to overturn the boat if it did capsize. Again, I don't remember arguing with him.

As Chris de Burg says in one of his songs
"Don't pay the ferryman,
Don't even fix a price
Don't pay the ferryman
Until he gets you to the other side"

:)


All said and done, the experience of sitting on a boat while far into the sea ... being able to reach down and touch the water..... to be able to look into a depth of several meters into the azure blue is a stunning experience. The farther you go, the more gentle the waves, the clearer the water, and as for the bigger picture .... well, thats simply overpowering.