A friend invited me over for her sister’s high school graduation. Lovely people, charming home, backyard that opened into an Instagram-worthy lake. The next morning, her parents, avid fishers, asked if we wanted to try our hand at fishing.
I politely declined. I have the hand-eye coordination of a cyclops waking up from a deep slumber, and figured it was safer for everyone if I didn’t wield a barbed line near anyone’s face. Instead, I sat by the water, prepared to indulge in people-watching, pretending I was in some bucolic scene minus the bugs.
What I wasn’t prepared for was my impending meltdown.
I’m not an animal rights activist. Growing up, I wanted a pet and got a cute dalmatian, only to give him away because I’m allergic. So I taught myself not to get attached— I like playing with my friends’ dogs and petting random farm animals I might come by, but that’s about it. And yes, a goat-slaughtering incident in my childhood made me almost vegetarian, but it wasn’t activism.
Which is why my reaction to fishing caught me off guard. There was something disturbingly gladiatorial about it. Watching my friend hold up a wriggling fish like he’d just won an Oscar made my stomach turn. Then he tossed it back into the water like a used napkin. My eyes prickled with unsolicited tears.
I’d understand if the fish were going to be eaten. That, at least, would have purpose. But this? This was recreational cruelty. Hooking a creature by its face, inducing mortal panic, then lobbing it back as if nothing happened - it felt absurd and needlessly violent.
Some tried to defend it. “It’s sport!” they said, like that explained anything. Others insisted, “But we’re not killing them.” Great. Just ethical torture, then.
Even the most violent sports, like boxing or wrestling, involve two contestants in similar categories who consent to it. You don’t know what organ the hook destroyed - do we know if the fish can swim straight again? What if its eye or intestines were gouged out? What if the hook causes some sort of infection? What if you held onto it for too long and it’s dead anyway?
Even Javed Akhtar said something similar in that viral clip - for the record, I had this epiphany before this clip came out. Great minds… Argh, I cannot compare myself to that legend. He says people aren’t as compassionate to the plight of fish because they are voiceless, and that art, literature, and poetry are the vocal cords of society. This is the complete video; it’s a must-watch, much like any clip of this man speaking.
In Tamil, there’s a saying: Kondraal Paavam, Thinnal Theerum. If you kill and eat the meat, the sin is forgiven. But what happens when there’s only the killing? (Okay, fine, potential maiming)
I floated a hypothetical: imagine an alien drops a hamburger from the sky, and a man bites into it, only to get yanked up by the roof of his mouth, dragged into the clouds, and tossed back to earth, slightly concussed and emotionally damaged. But hey, not dead!
They laughed. I didn’t.
This incident made me wonder: how much pointless violence do we allow simply because it’s common? Because it doesn’t scream? Manual scavenging is still practiced in India - men sent into sewage lines, often dying from toxic gas inhalation. We have machines for this. We have money. What we don’t have is outrage.
Even online, especially online, people are quick to wound. Hate comments flood content like sewer water. Not critique. Not discourse. Just rage for sport. A second of pleasure at someone else’s expense. It’s fishing, but for dopamine.
Creating is vulnerable. I still hesitate to publish anything because I know what it's like to bleed into a piece, only to have someone toss a hook in.
There’s enough suffering in the world—natural disasters, incurable diseases, climate catastrophe, wars started by men with fragile egos. Must we manufacture more?
I didn’t fish that day. I just watched. And I cried a little, quietly, for that voiceless fish.
There’s a similar saying in Malayalam too. Thank You for sharing.
Completely and wholeheartedly agree!