Response to Nitoo Das's how to cut a fish

Why Did I Learn to Fry Fish

At the age of sixteen,
I begged my mother to teach me how to fry fish
She taught me how to pass squishy and slippery
Pieces of fish under cold running water
And how to pick the odd plastic like scales from the skin.

Since I had always loved fish,
The stagnant watery smell that filled the tiny kitchen
Didn’t bother me because the idea of biting
Into hot succulent flesh and crispy skin of cooked fish
Helped me go through the slimy process of making it.

Massaging a mixture,
Of salt, red chili powder and turmeric powder
Onto raw fish pieces is not as easy as you might think.
One has to be careful not to squish the raw fish
 So hard that the fish bones stick out and prick you.

Since that day,
I have never let fish bones prick my hands
Neither while eating nor while preparing it.
I learned countless fish recipes from my mother,
Cooked them for her and gorged on them myself.

But now that I’m a bride,
The joy of frying and even eating fish is gone.
As I wash the raw fish pieces under the running water,
The pungency of boiling hot mustard oil and raw fish,
Assault me while I serve my life sentence in the kitchen.

I put on my armor,

A perforated ladle and the lid of the wok,
To stop the bubbling oil from scarring me more.
I battle with the fish while my real enemy was outside,
Watching television in the drawing room.

Irritating fumes spread,
Through the whole house when fresh juicy fish
Hits the smoking mustard oil in the wok.
My husband yells as usual to turn on the exhaust,
As they make even his nose and eyes water.

Today however,
I refuse to blow away the fumes that make him tear up.
The water in the fish evaporated with lots of loud, roaring bubbles.
They sound like applause or the firecrackers during Diwali,
Today the bubbles loudly ssssssssssshed  my husband for me.