The "Breaking Up" of the Aquarium

So much can happen in just two weeks.

It was July 2000. I was in Male for holidays after finishing the third semester of my degree programme.

Even months earlier, my sis Shahy had brought up the topic of getting rid of the aquarium we had in our sitting room for years.

She struck the correct note when she talked of "changes" that could make our sitting room more comfy and more sociable.

But then, there were always those little things that hinder changes. My kid sis Shaahu couldn't bear to part with the aquarium because she was still sentimentally attached to the aquarium although there was nothing much in it, except small, dull fishes. The aquarium can never be the same after the death of the pacu. It looked empty. Dead. Haunted.

I don't really know the reasons why my dad was against getting rid of the aquarium. Maybe he was sentimentally attached to it. Or maybe he just couldn't bear to part with a thing in which he had invested so much money and time in.

I still remember that day when my dad and I went to look at the half-inch thick glass at Selby Drive. Selby Drive was where the Central Hotel in Rahdhebai Magu is now.

I still remember the day when Hussain Shareef, his brothers and their friends, helped us drag the steel frame into our sitting room on which father began to put in silicone and glass which finally took the shape of a huge aquarium, dimensions of which were seven-by-two-by-two feet. It was that big.

My mom, although reluctant at first, was later convinced to get rid of the aquarium even though she was careful not to voice it too much lest she hurt dad's feelings.

As for me, well, I was the practical one. I believe in holding on to things that are sentimental only to the extent that I also believe we have to let them all go if we can bring about changes, get things done that are more better for us now in the present.

Anyway, the aquarium could never be the same after the death of the pacu. Hence, I had no sentimental attachments to the aquarium since the pacu wasn't there no more.

So, during my two-week holiday in Male, we brought the topic up again, and surprisingly, dad finally supported the idea.

Yaman, my brother-in-law, said we don't have to destroy the tank but give it to a friend of his who would like to have a big aquarium like that.

Everything was agreed upon.

Yaman's friends came on an afternoon and began the painstaking process of taking out the aquarium out of our sitting room.

But then it got stuck! One end was touching the wall of my uncle Hussain's house, and there was no further space to turn it around.

Then my dad made the shocking suggestion: "Let's break it up!"

"What!" I was stunned by this. Moresoever I was surprised why suddenly he wanted to destroy a thing in which he had invested so much money and time, and for which I believe he had sentimental value.

I strongly protested but it irritated my father more who was now anxious to get rid of the tank in whatever way possible and get done with it.

The guys got ready to punch in the glass.

I couldn't look. It was too much.

All my extended family members--aunts, uncles, cousins--were out there watching the whole show, intrigue on their faces.

Some of them were really concerned and had the same view as me. They didn't want to destroy the aquarium because of the amount of work and time my dad put in to make it.

They were arguing like me. Don't destroy the tank. There has to be some way to force it out of the door. What goes in must come out, right?

But these arguments only irritated my dad more. I can't understand why. Here I was trying to prevent one of dad's works from going to waste but all he was concerned was getting rid of the aquarium now.

The guy got ready to hit the glass. I looked away.

"This is it," I thought. "No going back". Glass, once shattered, cannot be put back. That's the simple truth.

Nothing happened. I almost jumped with joy. Maybe it was fate the glass didn't crack. Isn't it time someone realised that this was a message of some kind that we ought not destroy the aquarium.

However much my dad disliked it, I interfered once again and voiced my opinion there must be someway to get the aquarium out of our sitting room.

My uncle-in-law Saeed came by and he said if we tried lifting the end which was already out we could get it out. But the problem was it was too heavy.

My dad had put a cement layer on the bottom once when the glass had a crack in the early days.

That was what was making it impossible for us to lift the tank. And that was what finally led the tank to be destroyed.

I finally accepted defeat. There was no choice but to break the tank apart. I finally voiced my acceptance that the aquarium had to be dismantled.

The relevance of my "voicing" my defeat here? Well, it seemed that the whole time I was actually the one who was most strongly opposed to breaking up the tank. If not for me, my father would have made the guys already break it.

So there it was. When I consented, they started breaking the glass. But it failed to send any jolts in me by then, because I had accepted things for what they were. There was no choice but to dismantle the tank.

And so they did. With that, the end of an era.

When I think back on it, I remember one of the funniest incidents that ever happened to me and it concerned the aquarium.

My mom and dad always told me NEVER to sit on our comfy chair when we were filling the aquarium with water during the time we put in fresh water. Mostly we did it at night and therefore there was the danger we might fall asleep if we sit back and relax, while letting the aquarium get filled.

And that was exactly what happened to me. I sat on the comfy chair, thinking I wouldn't fall asleep. But that incident learnt me a lesson: never trust yourself not to fall asleep if you're awfully tired and if you are sitting in a comfy chair or a couch or lying on the bed. These are among those few things that you can't trust even yourself with.

I woke up because something cold was touching my feet. I snapped out of my sleep, and got the shock of my life! The whole sitting room was flooded! Water level was up to about two inches from the floor.

It was around 3:00 in the morning. Everyone was asleep. I thought of quietly cleaning up the mess and go back to bed and keep quiet about it.

For some reason, no fish had jumped out of the aquarium and it made the job easier. I began mopping the floor.

But halfway through the job, my mom came down, to go to the toilet. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, kept looking at what I was doing for a few moments, and in a soft voice asked me what was happening. I told her. She didn't make any further comments. Maybe she was too sleepy for the incident to totally settle in. However, after she finished the toilet, she came and helped me dry the floor. She didn't make any comments that would make me feel bad or stupid.

However, I was expecting that next morning, when my other family members come to know about it, they would be needling me the whole day. But it didn't happen. Maybe because they didn't actually get to see the incident, they couldn't digest wholly the silliness of my carelessness. All the better for me because I escaped the humiliation.

Without the aquarium, the sitting room now is more spacious. We realised how much space the aquarium was consuming only after we got rid of it.

We have now rearranged the sitting room. We all contributed to the "new look" of the sitting room.

We finally got to have sofas in our sitting room, and it is now more comfortable. Not to say that it is so comfy that mom now has a new headache because me and my kid sister Shaahu sometimes get too lazy to go upstairs to our beds and therefore fall asleep in front of the TV in the sitting room. Something bad always comes with good, right?

Now we have a proper rack for our TV and it is quite comfortable watching TV while idling on the sofa.

And my sis Shahy says that the 31-inch TV screen view looks much bigger now that it is on eye-level.

I think I can see that. Films and song videos now look much better and engaging. One of the first videos we watched were Boyzone's songs from By Request, and the films Scream 3, Final Destination and The Beach. The photography looked amazing and it was so engaging because (with high volume from our loudspeakers), we were getting jolts out of watching Scream 3 and Final Destination.

So much changes at our home during just the two weeks I was there that July. Good changes. In fact, my sis Shahy was commenting on it. I don't remember her exact words but she said something like "you always bring changes with your coming and then you're gone just like that."

In fact, I'm not there to enjoy the fruits of home.

Back in March, 1999, I had just bought the 31-inch TV from Reef Side (for about Rf 7,400 or about US$ 620) in order to enjoy "a more cinematic experience" as I told my family. But then I got to enjoy watching films on that TV for only about two weeks before I had to come rushing to Malaysia on March 17 to enrol in my degree course.

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