CHENNAI: It is the performance of five men on a boat and another 18 men on the sand, with the sea as their stage. Loaded with heavy bundles of rope, a medium-sized boat is getting ready to sail. As its small Yamaha engine growls to life, a layer of dark smoke fills the air. Yes, Perivalai has just begun. Literally translated as big net, Perivalai is an ancient fishing method still practised by the fishermen in the age of satellite-guided trawling.
“We do this only when the sea is like a vayal,” says Govindaraj, one of the protagonists. Pointing towards the calm surface of the early morning sea off the Marina beach, he adds Perivalai is done only when the waves are not rough, that too only in the Tamil month of Thai masam.
6.30 am: The curtain-raiser
Walking bare-foot on the cold sand, a group of nine men come close to the boat to wave good luck to their sailing brethrens. “To set sail is not an easy task,” a young fisherman says, looking at the heavy load of ropes onboard as the boat’s small engine struggles to make a move against the push of the incoming waves.
Dancing to the tunes of a calm-faced sea, the boat slowly moves towards the east where the big crimson ball has just started rising from the horizon. A few hundred metres into the sail, a man jumps off the boat with a rope, cleaving his way through the waves to the sand where, like a torch bearer, he carefully hands over the bait line to Govindaraj. Clad in a pale white baniyan that houses his paunch over a blue trouser, Govindaraj assumes position, facing the sea to sway the rope to the tunes of incoming waves.
He is joined by another eight men who slowly line up to pull the rope. A mere touch on the rope gives hint about the enormous pressure it carries and the way the sea swings back and forth. “We have to be gentle with the rope.
Otherwise the fishes will know that they are in a trap,” says young Senthil, looking at the boat slowly taking a semi-circular path in the background of an orange-hued morning sun. The boatmen are slowly emptying their stock of ropes in the sea one after another. Sooner, the ropes give way to two different kind of nets — Ezha and Madi valai as the boat completes half-way into its journey.
“It’s a solid two and a half hour-long wait,” sweating Govindaraj says, looking at the boat taking a U-turn.
7.30 am: The shore party
As the boatmen finish dropping the nets and sail towards the shore, another group of nine men, with their skin hardened and darkened by the sea and the Sun, slowly march towards the shore, about half a kilometre away from their counterparts. Looking at the approaching boat, they get ready to receive the other end of the bait line.
Less than a hundred metre away from the shore, a man jumps off the boat and starts swimming towards the awaiting shore party. He hands over the other end to one of the waiting men.
8.00 am: The action
“Yelee, yelee, yelee....” The men on the ground swing into action. With their sweat drops wetting the hot sand, the great pull just begins. For the next half-an-hour, both sides slowly pull the rope in unison,
abiding to the dance of waves.
“To sync with the sea is essential for a good catch,” says the head of the second group while pulling the net with full zest. While both the groups busily drawing the net closer towards them, another three men arrive at the scene carrying plastic bottles with live sea worms. Walking between the two bait lines, they start sprinkling the strange-looking creatures as if garnishing the shore for their incoming guests. Looking at the worms crawling like snakes, one of them says, “The fishes should not feel distanced from the sea and the worms are to ensure a homely ambience.”
8.30 am: The climax
With a thumping allegiance, the two sides simultaneously draw a portion of the sea closer towards the shore all the while as they inch towards each other. The atmosphere reverberates with the tune of “Yelee, yeelee yeeeleee...”, as the distance between the two groups reduces to just a few metres. As the elliptically-shaped portion of the sea, fenced by two 28X24 nets, gradually arrives, three men from the pulling sides jump into water and splash it as if they are staging a drumming performance. This, the fishermen say, will make the fishes take their final sail towards the nets.
The showdown nears an end when first net, a loosely-knitted one, is drawn outside water. It mostly brings surface-dwelling fishes such as the silvery Kaara podi, which shimmer under the Sun. Now, it is the time to take out the big net as more than 15 men come together to drag it towards the shore.
The big brown net shows nothing to but the trembling of fishes taking their last breath. Along the vibrations, come splashes of water like a musical fountain. As the men wide open the big net, a middle-aged woman enters the scene. From now, she is in charge, as a large number of people assemble to buy the fresh catch. The men just leave the fishes to her as she start loudly calling out the price for each item. “If you ask the men who went in the sea, they will quote a higher price,” Mallika tells a man who started bargaining, adding that the best of the catch gets sold even before it reaches the market.
Along with fishes you can find a variety of sea-dwellers like snakes and jelly fish. The men carefully segregate the edible fishes before handing over the charge to Mallika. While, Mallika counts the bills of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000, the men move a little away from the shore and start spreading the nets for drying. Under the sun, they slowly walk towards their hamlets, carrying the ropes they pulled till then.. The trampled shore, savoured with dead fishes, is the only evidence left behind the big catch.