The Friendly "Piranha"

If ever there was a thing called intelligent fish, then this could have been one of them. At least this is the one which I've directly had contact with.

There are two other fishes that I could say, from my personal experience, have an intelligence. They are the freshwater shark-like catfish (some black, some white) and the Oscars. They allow you to pat them and they eat out of your hands.

OK, so many fishes might eat out of hands. Even those stupid carps and goldfishes, which are so dead-in-the-brain that you can tap them on the head and still they come to you! Not that I ever did it. I hate people who are cruel to animals. I only heard that this is so, that carps and goldfishes are stupid.

This particular "piranha" (well, that's what it looked like until someone told me recently that it was a pacu, something related to piranhas) we had was not the man-eating type, obviously, of course! The man-eating type is banned from import into Maldives. This one is vegetarian or so the pet shop owner claimed when we bought it. He called it some name. It sounded like "paakoo"!

That's the name we called our fish. Paakoo.

When we bought Paakoo about three years ago, it wasn't even half an inch in length. It was that small.

But it was expensive. My dad bought about six of them--three "pairs" the pet shop owner claimed though I doubt whether he knew the fishes' sex.

At first we kept them in a four-foot aquarium (which we later got rid of in favor of a seven-foot aquarium.) Later we had to transfer the Pacus to the larger aquarium because we found out that once they grew up, they were always fighting with one another, biting off one another's tails and fins. We assumed that they just needed space. But then they grew so big and so fast, demanding more space, that we had no choice but to get rid of five of them and just keep one.

The first time we came to know about this Pacu species was when we happened to come across an aquarium in a little shop called Red Rock behind an odd garage. I was taken in by it the first time. The fish is flat and round, and therefore in a glass aquarium it looks really big.

My dad and I immediately wanted it. Count on my dad when it comes to fish. He is as interested in this hobby as I am. That's one of the common grounds where he and I TOTALLY agree. Perhaps he is more of a fish enthusiast than I ever was (even though I always had been into fish as far as 1984)!

The Red Rock store owner told us that the fish grew to that size--two feet in length--in just one year! Imagine the thrill I had on hearing it. I had to have this fish.

We checked all pet shops. No Pacus. They never heard of such a thing.

We went back and asked the Red Rock guy.

"I got it by chance. The fish--which was only an inch in length that time--was in one of the fish stocks that I bought. It just happened to be there among the Silver Dollars. I think nobody noticed it because it resembled a Silver Dollar."

What a disappointing lead.

My dad and I discussd about buying the one in Red Rock store, but the owner quoted a heavy price. Rf 800 (about US$60). Surely it would be foolish to spend that much on just one single fish and if it died in our care that would be such a waste.

After several weeks, we came across the fish in an aquarium shop in Orchid Magu. There were only a few of them, and my dad didn't have any second thoughts in buying them. Even those tiny fishes cost around Rf 200 (about US$16) a pair but we bought it anyway.

However, the fishes didn't survive at our home for even six months. I didn't mean they died. The Red Rock guy proved right; the fishes grew too fast. It was as if you can actually see them growing. Today you look at them and tomorrow they would seem to be an inch bigger! Reminds me of an alien movie. A frightening prospect.

Soon the fishes outgrew the size of the tank. We had no choice but to get rid of some of them. But I was altogether against the idea. My dad suggested that we keep only one Pacu and give the rest (the other five) back to the pet shop. I said if he wants to return them he should return all because I cannot bare to get reminded that I had not one but six Pacus!

Against my wishes, he kept one Pacu and returned the rest. And boy, later, was I glad that my dad kept that one.

The Pacu made the seven-foot tank its whole home; there was virtually no space for any other fish except for a suckermouth catfish which we kept so that we do not have to rub-clean the inside of the glass of the aquarium. Let the sucker do the job. In reality, we were afraid to "shock" the Pacu everytime we put our hands into the tank, 'cos that risks it getting frightened and it might make sudden movements which might get it injured or the glass cracked!

To us, Paakoo became not just a fish but part of our family as well. No one was so attached to it than my dad. In fact, the fish got so tame to him that everytime my dad comes into the sitting room, the moment he steps in, the fish recognises him and runs towards his direction, expecting to be fed.

Paakoo became so friendly to my dad that when he cleans the tank, it's not even frightened. It just stays calmly in a corner, even when the water level goes as down as its upper fins start to show over the water, and it lets my dad touch it and pat it.

Although I didn't feed it, whenever I was in the sitting room, I made a point of sitting near where the fish stayed. I was taken in by its intelligence (I deduced it was intelligent because it recognised my dad from afar and allowed my dad to pat it.) And I think it was because of this that my face also became familiar to Paakoo, next to my dad, that it allowed even me to pat it during the times we cleaned the tank.

Its sheer size was what made us get this fish to our tank. But its sheer size was also the factor that led to its death.

In the last days leading to its death, Paakoo measured close to two-and-a-half feet in length. It was agonising to watch it turn around in the aquarium, either scratching its mouth or tail.

We decided to give it away to a friend who had a bigger aquarium. But then we were faced with the question: how to take it out without injuring it? We had no tranquilisers. We didn't know of anyone who had tranquilisers for fish. Surely, such a large fish was bound to jump around in the tank when it comes to know we were going to catch it. It would jump around, and get injured on the stones, when we lower the water level and started to touch it in the manner of catching it.

And that was exactly what happened. But I was out an errand that very moment. Maybe it was for the better. I didn't see it die that terrible death.

When I came back, the fish was not there. I asked my dad whether he had already taken it to the friend.

He was awfully quiet. He gets quiet that way either when he is terribly angry or when he is terribly upset.

But he answered anyway. Very shortly. As he was taking the fish, which he had managed to net in a cloth, it jumped out of his hand. It was big and strong and even my father could not calm it down.

When it landed on our hard, tiled floor from that height, that was the end. My father suspected it hit its head in some wrong way. Otherwise, it would have survived. Because, some months earlier, a big carp also jumped out and landed on that hard floor but it didn't die. So the Pacu must have fallen and hit in some way that it dealt a deathly blow to it.

I don't know what happened to me right at that moment but I think it was because I was too upset. Somehow, dad's explanation didn't seem enough to me. I was thinking how can Paakoo die when that carp didn't.

I began asking stupid questions; whether dad had deliberately become careless, or worse, whether he deliberately killed it because he couldn't bear to give it away to someone who might mistreat it?

My misplaced behavior was only aggravating the already tense situation. My mom grew angry and scolded me to keep quiet without further agonising my dad.

I demanded to see the body to make sure that my father's story was true. They showed me the body alright. It was dead. There was no outward damage to it. So it must be true. For some unfortunate reason, the fish landed fatally onto our tiled floor.

I kept quiet then. My bro-in-law Yaman also was quiet like my father.

At that time, I didn't realise the reason why they were so quiet. But now that I think about it, I think they were more upset over the incident than me because they witnessed it.

I felt guilty afterwards of having such bad thoughts as to suspecting that my dad or bro-in-law had somehow planned to kill Paakoo behind my back, when I went out on that errand. But there was no reason to think like that. My dad would never do such a thing. He would never harm an innocent living being like that.

I don't know why but just a few weeks before Paakoo's death, on an impulse, I invited Meemu Zaviyani, my photojournalist colleague at Haveeru Daily, and he took a photo of me sitting next to Paakoo (which I have uploaded here). That's the only memento I have of this wonderul fish-friend that I had.

When I was in Singapore in Sept 2000, I went to Sentosa Island and visited the Underwater World there. In one of the freshwater aquariums they had there, they had a stock of large Pacus. Seeing those revived my sad memories of our own Pacu.

But we have to let go sooner or later. That's the nature of life. Nothing is permanent. Everything is transitory. In the end, only memories linger. In memory, the love we had for our loved ones, loved things, live forever. Because there are no boundaries to the chambers of the human heart.

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