Rubber Trees, Streams, Fish

In the 1970s, as a young boy I used roam in the Rubber Plantations that had numerous streams running the length and breadth of the plantations. It was very rarely the sun rays penetrated the thick canopy of rubber trees and the streams that ran underneath were very clear and cold. My brother and I used to catch a variety of beautiful small fish into glass Horlicks or Jam bottles. We brought these bottles into sunlight to admire beauty of those fish and then released them back to the streams. We became more adventures at times and caught big fish using rattan baskets. Some times we ran away throwing the basket back into the water when we caught big fish that looked so threatening and wriggled relentlessly. We didn’t dare to touch them. The plantations were so big that we could walk miles on through them. Now, only the scattered remnants of rubber plantations are found in those areas. The big plantations have disappeared together with the streams and the fish that gave us so much fun.