Life at sea
MaryDasan.S

The artisanal fishermen have what must rank as one of the toughest jobs in the world. They risk their life to earn livelihood. The fishermen in south India have never gained from any anti-poverty schemes [from state] and enjoy no risk insurance in an occupation where a single slip could spell death. This people are not only very poor, they are also quite backward, and often illiterate.

Though I have had experience of fishing, it was in the last week I became capable to see the familiar thing in a new way. James, a 59years old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea, were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. Everything about him was old except his blood-shot eyes, which were cheerful and undefeated. It was this old man, who first revealed to me- brilliantly, meticulously, almost bravely- the horrors of life at sea. To him I owe my first [belated] conspectus of this hardworking life.

A look at what it is they do- and how poorly they are rewarded for it- can be compelling. The brutalising grind they go through works towards reducing them to beasts of burden.
The fishermen in our village usually start work at 3 in the afternoon and last up to fifteen hours. Everyday [except Saturdays] they gather around their fishing boats at 3’O clock. They go down the trail to the boats, feeling the sand under their feet and lift the boat and slide her into the water. I was in a boat, which had gone ten days now without taking a good catch. All boats spread apart after they were out of the mouth of the shore and each one headed for the part of the ocean where they hoped to find fish. We were going far out and I left the smell of the land behind. Sometimes someone would speak in a boat. But most of the boats were silent except for the sound of the outboard motors. It is considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea. When we reached the destination, we lowered our net into the sea with precision and waited. “Only we have no luck anymore”, the old man said. But who knows? May be today. Everyday is a new day.

As I watched, a small tuna rose in the air, turned and dropped head first into the water. The tuna shone silver in the sun and after he had dropped into the water another and another rose and they were jumping in all directions, churning the water and leaping in long jumps after the bait. They were circling it and driving it.
But when we dragged our net it was empty. All we caught were a few mackrale and scads, too tiny to bother to pick up. And ten or twelve tunas, too small to get any price. All of us were disappointed over our catch and felt too tired to lower our net again. “This is our fate”, the old man murmured. Even then they hope to catch it tomorrow. This is their fate for more than three months in a year. Someday they have to fish in a stormy and turbulent night at sea. Indeed, fishing kills them exactly as much as it keeps them alive.

Even where they lose out they try and run their lives with dignity. And lose out they often do. It is their sheer willpower to survive and support their families honourably. The resilience of thousands of artisanal fishermen is truly astonishing. The fishermen’s relationship with sea, far from being a conquest of nature, is a romance with nature. They always think of sea as ‘kadalamma’ which is people call her when they love her.

Although they earn foreign currency for the nation, the fisherfolk in India has been marginalized for a long time. This is a community that is beyond the margin of elite vision. And beyond the margins of a press and media that fail to connect with them. Yet, their hard work, their dignity in the face of such circumstances and their quest for self-reliance, begs one question. Is there anything these people cannot achieve if given the right opportunities? If equipped with what quite a few other societies have given their own citizens? That is among other things-sanitation, education, shelter, and work opportunities. At the end only one answer stands out; with those basics in place, they can and will change their world. And others’.