Me, in full teacher-mummy mode,: "Where do fish live?"
Copy-Kitten, knitting her brows and thinking,: "In the fridge".
This was when my younger daughter was about two years old, and had not yet started going to playschool where she would soon parrot:
"Machli jal ki raani hai/ jeevan uska paani hai" (Fish is the queen of the water / Water is the life of fish).
Her answer made me THINK HARD. Really, Mumbai has no ponds to speak of, where I could show my daughters that, see, this is where fishes live. The only fish, she had seen where the ones we eat, coming out from the freezer to the frying pan.
Vegetarians will maybe shake their heads at this conditioning in cruelty, but then, when we were young, we ate fish but knew all the while that they came from rivers and ponds (both being near our home).
With ponds becoming extinct (or severely endangered) in Mumbai, it was my daughter's clear-eyed vision that made me realise once again the impact of our own thoughtless actions in destroying our environment.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
CANDID KITTEN - A FISHY TALE
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14 comments:
Very true...we are living in concrete jungles...
And children of this concrete aritificial world are indeed unfortunate...for them fruits grow in trees, fish live in water only in books...
they see fruits, vegetables, fish on & off the shelves of supermarkets....
we all learn things when we grow up... without actually seeing a lot of them
who gives you the milk?
The Shopkeepers and they get from the crates, the crates come from the truck.
How Cows are useful to us?
They eat and clear the rotten vegetables in the market.
I got these answers from a school children busy in doing his homework.
ROFL!!!...sad but true...
copy kitten she maybe but copy cat surely not...what an honest eye opener of an answer..
You are very right. Unfortunately. Too bad that humans are so very dangerous to our environments. The effects of the damage can clearly seen world-wide.
It was rather eerie in January when it was a record of -20 degrees and Hungary and other Eastern European countries did not get gas from Ukraine/Russia. Even Western European countries were concerned. It was a big warning sign of the whole world! Like the unusually mild winters, the climatic changes, I could go on and on.
Great post. It is true. Even my own daughter who is in her 20s had never seen a cow up close before. I grew up in the country and my grandparents had a farm. I think it is a shame that childen do not see where our food comes from. It will be hard for them to distinguish what is real food and what is not. GREAT post!
Hi SGD, Inder, Pradip, Lilly, Double-D, Mina, Pinku,
Sad but true. I grew up in a house with a garden and a pond next to it, played in open green fields and got lost in hedges and woods, but my daughters are growing up in concrete jungles with swimming pools to dive in and play areas to jump about in.
I can surely empathize with you
hmmm...how abt the arabian sea? you have pomfrets, shrimps, kingfish, bombay duck in the sea...prob a trip to sasoon docks....yummy.....
:)
true
I remember when my younger daughter was amazed to learn that the chicken we eat is actually a living thing.She summarily dismissed me saying," Don't be silly Mommy, the chicken we eat is a toy chicken,the real ones lives in a farm!"
Hi Lazyani, Lopa and Magiceye,
I agree sadheartedly.
Hi axw11,
Great suggestion. Will follow it up.
Living in a big city has its advantages, but reading something like that makes me have a bad conscious! We are responsible for other living beings and for the environment of this planet.
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