My mother and I are comfortably perched on old cane moras watching my maternal grandmother about to gut a fish. "Ilish mach," she had informed me with a smile, holding it up in the air. It is a medium-sized ilish ("they're small in the wintertime"), the downward slant of its mouth and the angular line of its lower jaw giving it a vaguely determined air. She holds the ilish lengthwise along the blade, grasping it by the twin prows of its headless neck so that its back is towards her and slices open the soft white underbelly with one single fluid upward motion. "You're not eating the ilish?"

Source: Dhaka Tribune June 01, 2019 06:45 UTC