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When it comes to buying fish, I used to think nothing could beat the chatter, smell and feel of a Kolkata market, the finesse with which a large katla is decapitated being matched only by a seasoned buyer’s nose for quality, prodding and sniffing one round-eyed creature after another for that perfect pick. That’s until I encountered the flying fish at the Pike Place market in downtown Seattle.

No, these are not the small large-finned fish you see leaping out of the water on a cruise to Alibaug. They are large salmon or halibut or tuna that the fishmongers at Pike Place expertly fling from one point to another as part of a process of delighting the customer.

They put on quite an air show. It begins with your pointing to the fish you want from among the many enticing choices set in a bank of snow.

The first fling is from a handler at the customer point to a cleaner, who in turn flings it to the person manning a weighing machine, and on it goes to the chopper. It takes skill: try launching a large fish across the room, or catching one fired at you. Our cricket team could pick up a tip or two from these guys.

But more than the fishmongers’ skills, it’s the laughter and banter that goes with it which makes something humdrum like selling fish akin to the song and dance routine that bartenders at places like the Hard Rock Café go through as they toss and slide bottles and glasses to the beat of Metallica (or perhaps Sleepless in Seattle).

So how did it come to be? No, it isn’t by accident or even its 100-year-old tradition that the flying fish show at Pike Place has become a must-see on the itinerary of a Seattle visit.

The Japanese owner of the fish market hired a business consultant many years back when supermarkets were taking customers away. So this concept was born to enhance and showcase the experience of buying fresh fish, something the supermarket wouldn’t find easy to replicate.

The spotless white of the fish handlers’ overalls, and their apparent joy in what they do for a living, adds to the ‘freshness’ of the experience.

Honed over the years, the fishmongers’ sales pitch has now become the stuff of business case studies and corporate training, much like the dabbawalas of Mumbai have drawn the attentions of IIM and Harvard with their clockwork processes and work culture.

One of the take-aways for people working in any field is to try and enjoy the work you do, the message being that if they can find a way to enjoy selling fish, you can make any job more interesting. For employers, it’s about the business benefits of empowering workers and creating an environment where people can enjoy doing whatever they have to do for a living.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, however. So, to go on with my fish tale, I have to confess I stuck to the familiar, choosing a salmon rather than one of the more exotic varieties on show like the red snapper, but you would’ve understood if you had seen that monk fish placed in the snow with its jaws wide open.

That’s the ugliest fish I’ve seen, uglier even than the bombil which also has a large, toothy mouth.

Finally, back home at my friend’s Bellevue apartment, we fired up the grill and cooked the fresh wild Alaskan salmon, which we washed down with locally produced red wine on a typically cold and wet Seattle evening.

Not quite a hilsa fry, but a memorable experience on the whole.

Email: c_sumit@dnaindia.net