Short Story: The Seller of Fish

In this short story, Uvini Atukorala takes us through the narrow lanes of an unnamed small town Sri Lanka where a fish seller helps two young girls understand the world of grown ups.

Yalini hears the raucous cry of the fish seller from the garden. It’s still quite faint. It would grow louder and louder as he came nearer her house. He would soon be at her house, and she could watch him at his work. Yalini is nine years old, soon to be ten. The fish seller is old, but younger than her parents, she decides. ‘Maaaalu,’ he shouts, dragging out the “aaaa” long and mournfully, as though praying for the souls of the fish he sells. Not content with that, he also shouts out the names of the fish he sells. By the end of the school holidays, Yalini knows the names of the fish the fish seller brings: Paraw,Thalapath,  Isso, Halmasso … When she returns to school, she’d forget the names of the fish, but she’d still remember Aruna, the seller of fish.