OK here's the story: I work in IT for a software company, and as most of you can guess, that means I have a lot of Indian coworkers. And since Hinduism is a big religion in India, a lot of my Indian co-workers are Hindu.
It's pretty fun being able to get involved in Indian culture, learning about festivals, food, customs, cricket, etc.
Anyway, enough intro.
I'm getting ready to leave work today and one of Indian coworkers (i'm only guessing he's Hindu, actually) shows up needing help b/c his server crashed. On the half-wall above my cubicle, I keep a 2.5 gal divided aquarium with 2 Bettas (Siamese Fighting Fish) in it. As an intentional bit of irony on my part, the aquarium's lone decoration is a building with minarets that somewhat resembles the Taj Mahal. It was a cool decoration and I figured my Indian friends would get a rise out of it.
The Taj Mahal is unrelated to this.
He notices the aquarium and asks if they are my fish. I tell him they are.
He then asks me if it would be OK for him to feed my fish.
Why not? So I hand him the bottle of pellets and he says "No, I need to bring in my own food. Do they eat worms? They sell frozen worms at the market."
Now I'm not sure what worms he's referring to. There are some frozen worms that are suitable to be fed to Bettas, but I dunno if those are the ones he's talking about.
So we strike a deal that he'll bring in some of these worms and if they are the right ones, he can feed them to my fish.
I asked him why and he mentioned that it had to do with his religion, but he didn't seem to keen on explaining any further than that, and I got a vibe from him that suggested it wasn't a convenient time for him to educate me, so I didn't press him any further.
So my question is:
Is there a custom for Hindus to feed fish? Is that a festival, or a ritual, or what?
I did some Google searching, naturally, but the only thing that sounded remotely similar is that many Hindus believe that feeding wildlife is just plain good for your soul, and Hindus in India are often giving food to cows, birds, snakes, fish, even ants.
I couldn't find anything suggesting that there is a specific reason or festival in which you would want to feed fish, but his tone indicated that he had been looking for someone who had fish he could feed, so I thought there might be more to it than just doing a good deed.
Anyone have any further info?
It's pretty fun being able to get involved in Indian culture, learning about festivals, food, customs, cricket, etc.
Anyway, enough intro.
I'm getting ready to leave work today and one of Indian coworkers (i'm only guessing he's Hindu, actually) shows up needing help b/c his server crashed. On the half-wall above my cubicle, I keep a 2.5 gal divided aquarium with 2 Bettas (Siamese Fighting Fish) in it. As an intentional bit of irony on my part, the aquarium's lone decoration is a building with minarets that somewhat resembles the Taj Mahal. It was a cool decoration and I figured my Indian friends would get a rise out of it.
The Taj Mahal is unrelated to this.
He notices the aquarium and asks if they are my fish. I tell him they are.
He then asks me if it would be OK for him to feed my fish.
Why not? So I hand him the bottle of pellets and he says "No, I need to bring in my own food. Do they eat worms? They sell frozen worms at the market."
Now I'm not sure what worms he's referring to. There are some frozen worms that are suitable to be fed to Bettas, but I dunno if those are the ones he's talking about.
So we strike a deal that he'll bring in some of these worms and if they are the right ones, he can feed them to my fish.
I asked him why and he mentioned that it had to do with his religion, but he didn't seem to keen on explaining any further than that, and I got a vibe from him that suggested it wasn't a convenient time for him to educate me, so I didn't press him any further.
So my question is:
Is there a custom for Hindus to feed fish? Is that a festival, or a ritual, or what?
I did some Google searching, naturally, but the only thing that sounded remotely similar is that many Hindus believe that feeding wildlife is just plain good for your soul, and Hindus in India are often giving food to cows, birds, snakes, fish, even ants.
I couldn't find anything suggesting that there is a specific reason or festival in which you would want to feed fish, but his tone indicated that he had been looking for someone who had fish he could feed, so I thought there might be more to it than just doing a good deed.
Anyone have any further info?
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