CHENNAI: In Odisha’s Ganjam town, Pratima’s window used to overlook the glimmering ocean, rocks and pastel skies. Over the years, as the Rushikulya river mouth shifted, and high tide ensued, the sand under her home was eaten. Her village was gradually swallowed by the waves. “All my memories are there.
I am still there, though we have moved away. I feel like capturing all of it. The sea was so near us and we figured out a whole lifestyle near it,” the 24-year-old says. Having been relocated to another settlement in the district, she has recollections of the community taking countless loans for homes.
But Pratima’s lens consistently returns to this ghost town and lingers at homes, doors, windows and what remains. Waves gushing past a green door, women salvaging materials from destroyed homes, a lone man treading past uprooted homes — the fisherwoman’s frames document 40 years of coastal erosion, lost livelihoods, and migration.
The sea is an inseparable part of the lives of fisherfolk but this kadal, samudram, sea — what does this entity mean to the community? Pratima muses, the community does not harbour anger as the ocean is their livelihood. “Our homes have an emotional connection, and they are gone with coastal erosion and industrialisation, which are major problems. But our connection to the sea is paramparik; when the sea is there, we are there and we don’t know how else to live,” says Lalitha, who also photographed coastal erosion along with Pratima.
Against the backdrop of the sound of bulldozers playing on speakers, these two women’s photographs were in a section on coastal erosion, in the series ‘Chronicles of the Tides, Migration, Conflict and Climate’, a result of a fellowship by the Dakshin Foundation and Nagapattinam-based SNEHA, displayed at Lalit Kala Akademi. Photographer Palanikumar mentored these women for three months, in collaboration with PARI Network and Dakshin Foundation. Each shot contains a world of stories, and as an organiser puts it, a magical island.
This was the first time Pratima used a camera, which she calls “a heavy machine”, testing the waters with the various buttons, lenses, blurry photos and shots. They were among the 12 fisherwomen from Nagapattinam and Odisha, who had encountered this curious object only in glimpses whether as children in the bright flashes of photo studios, or in flower-scented, bustling weddings.
The women weathered rough tides and hurdles including teasing, the questions of ‘why are women using cameras’ and obtaining permits from village heads. “But as soon as we held the camera in our hands, these worries disappeared and we became more confident, and began to believe in ourselves,” 42-year-old Lakshmi pens. This camera transformed from a mere piece of metal to a medium for their voices, instilling confidence, and a lesson on technical photography.
“People understand fishing as going into the sea but they do not see the hard work that goes into the process,” says Gauri, another Odisha-based photographer. As the word ‘fisherman’ is imagined, our mind warners to the stock image of a dot-like figure against a gleaming horizon. However, ‘Chronicles of the Tides’ shatters that idea, displaying the sea peeking from behind boats, the several tools required to repair boats, women travelling distances to sell fish, and the salty water clinging to the wet pants of joyfully playing children.
Palanikumar highlights the importance of women photographing their interior lives and adds, “I have also learned from their perspectives, that we need to create more space for work like this. As Ambedkar says, we need to pay back to society.”
Viewfinder, visions, women
Equipped with eri koodais in their mouths, prawn catchers, primarily women, sink into familiar waters and search for prawns in sandy beds. Their hands and legs bear the deep scars and marks of their labour, and trysts with the sea. These narratives interested Nagapattinam-based Suganthi Manickavel, and her images carefully trace a painstaking livelihood, affected by industrialisation and climate change.“Even though I have lived in Nagapattinam my entire life, this was my first visit to the harbour with a camera,” she says. Other stories that she captured included her father who continues to search for daily catch despite his toes numbed owing to prolonged seawater exposure, and the life of Boopathi Ammal whose husband was killed by the Sri Lankan Navy.
Where are fisherwomen in our idea of the profession? “When we think of fisher villages, there are images of a strong fisherman alone in the seas throwing a net, but here we have frames of women selling and catching fish. There is no fishing without women. Women’s life, their perspectives and labour is either glorified or victimised, but here these photographers have broken past this,” says Vanavil School’s founder Prama Revathi, and chief guest.
Located in markets, carrying baskets of fish and on corners of roadsides, women are an integral part of the fishing industry. Manjamatha followed her mother-in-law buying fish at dawn, threading through forests, roads and dusty paths to sell them across kilometres. “She must have experienced so many struggles.” Other photographers include Shri Bharathi Sundaram, whose camera “was yelling at her telling her to take photos”; Mahalakshmi who writes “My life was very small before photography came into my life.”, Poongodi, Nagamma, and Lakshmi.
Chief guests Dayanita Singh and Jerald Mary note this was a victorious historic shift in photography. Tweaking a well-known adage, PARI editor and chief guest Namita Waikar says, photos can tell stories that a thousand words cannot, and the most powerful is when one tells their own.
The exhibition is on at Lalit Kala Akademi till September 29.