Once I caught a fish alive!

One, two, three, four, five 
Once I caught a fish alive.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,

Then I let him go again

"Why did you let him go?"

"Because he bit my finger so!"

"Which finger did he bite?"

"This little finger on my right."

How many of us enjoyed fishing in their early child hood days. Well,I recall my pre-school days going to the farm to enjoy fishing. I remember those lengthy hours sitting lonely on the corners of the pond and placing the string in water. Dreaming my day dreams until my fishing string gets tightened at the end hook with someone biting on the other side. It is then that I wake up and get myself into the real world and know something has been victim to my trap. I remember the beautiful stream and the lake nearby where I spent the early years of my life. I remember my village and the rainy days at which I flew my paper boats one by one down the running stream. Those days when I thought my village was the only world that existed and never knew there was another world beyond the valleys that surrounded my little world. I see the sun raising from one of the peaks and setting on the other. The bird’s squires in the early morning along with chants of squirrels. What would be the world behind those far away mountains? Never thought anything in deep. But enjoyed the beauty of the mild blue line drawn against the blue sky. I was free little boy full of play and joy. That was a time we are free as a bird in the ether to worry of nothing but fly in the world of dreams. My wish was of a world where all the stones were sweets. I often thought how beautiful this world would have been then. I loved chocolates more than my life. If someone witnessed my opened mouth and see my little rotten tooth would know how much I kissed them for real. Now at the twilight of the spring days, I go down the shore of the lake to sit for fishing. It is a simple thing but needs great patience and hope. You don’t know when your turn would be. May be it is hours and hours sitting and may turn out to be a waste of time but always need hope and expectation. Of course a perfect place to sit and dream...I remember one day getting a little larger pond fish were I was terrified by the jumping of the fish. I went all the way running to my mother for help. The pond fishes seems to be more powerful and surely tastier when fried.  It was in the fourth standard of my school I had the first songs of nursery….One two three four five…..once I caught a fish alive…. by that time I was someone who caught a real fish ALIVE.