These are some notes from an experience I had while spending two weeks in the north at a new fly fishing lodge. A little more information about my time up there can be found on Leland's 'Official' Blog. I'm looking for feedback on this piece, because I might want to put something similar into an article I write for a fly fishing publication. It would need to be shortened up a bit, I know, but I'm also curious if anyone has any ideas how I can mix interior monologue and dispassionate narrative fluidly, while maintaining distinction between the two. One more thing: I need a better ending. Okay here goes:

I spend a hot, dusty afternoon on the open-air veranda and peruse the camp’s dozen-volume library for the first time. The Rod in India by ‘Henry Sullivan Thomas, F.L.S.’ captures my curiosity. I pull it from the shelf and open it. The faded title page doesn’t disappoint:

THE ROD IN INDIA

BEING

HINTS HOW TO OBTAIN SPORT

WITH

REMARKS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISH

AND THEIR CULTURE

AND

Illustrations of Fish and Tackle

Wow. First published in 1873. This is great. I sip my tea and read the introduction:

Not a few lovers of the gentle art are condemned by their calling to pass the best years of their existence in India, sighing, amongst other things, for the banks of Tweed, or Usk, or other familiar stream in the old country, looking forward to the too far distant time when furlough, or other favouring circumstance, shall take them home to the land where they may again beguile the speckled beauties from the stream, or once more do battle with the lordly salmon…

‘Lordly salmon’! Ha-ha! What an old codger! Whee!

…To such it may be a comfort to know that they need not wait so long for the “good time coming,” that there is as good fishing to be had in India as in England; and to minister such comfort to exiled anglers is my present philanthropic object.

That’s very noble of him! I flip forward to CHAPTER II: THE MAHSEER, and learn that

In my own opinion, and that of others whom I have met, the Mahseer shows more sport for its size than a salmon. The essence of sport, or in other words of the enjoyment of any pursuit lies, I take it, in the exhibition of superiority therein, whether of skill or courage, not the exhibition for others to see, but the difficult attainment of it for our own satisfaction.

I wonder what exactly he means by that. What a verbose guy he is. INTRIGUING. I thumb to CHAPTER III: THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAHSEER, which begins with an epigraph by none other than Sir Izaak Walton. Charming indeed. I learn more:

The Mahseer is a carp, though, as we shall see hereafter, very different in size, flavour, strength, activity, and so forth, from his ignoble namesake in England

Hmm, fascinating. CHAPTER IV: CIRCUMVENTING THE MAHSEER – whose title I take to be an eponymous homage to that more-famous volume on Indian angling (which could, in my current estimation, not but fail to equal the rare grace of this particular narrative which I have in my hands before me – begins:

Some people complain that the Hindu does everything in a way opposite to that which you would naturally expect of a sane man…

What?! My scalp tightens. I sit up and make sure I’m alone, then keep reading:

…because opposite to that way in which all Europeans are accustomed to do[,] the like acts. On entering a house he has not the ordinary politeness to take off his hat, but instead thereof, he kicks off his shoes…

Why would he say that!? And as though Hindu people are all the same! Does anyone know this is in here?

…in place of making himself a little extra civil before a big-wig, he folds his arms, and stands bolt upright, and so forth…

Where is this going?? This bad man!

…Similarly, the Mahseer, being a thorough Asiatic, does many things by contraries.

My jaw drops. I slam closed the book. It puffs dust, and I hastily place it on the shelf. Hands in pockets, I pace the veranda. Maybe I whistle something. ‘A thorough Asiatic’?!

Labels: lordly salmon, racialized colonial supremacism, the rod in india

posted by Alex Cref at 2:30 pm