The early morning at the beach was a vignette that I have always loved. I got to revisit it, with my parents and husband very much in tow, as we drove at dawn to get the freshest catch to surfeit our seafood cravings. Frothy waves hit the shore, the new ones smashing against the retreating ones without a hint of politeness. A stream of sand particles hurriedly ran after the retreating water to watch this wave feud. The beach in question was pretty much eaten up by the sea and sadly, there was not much of the earlier sandy expanse left to walk on. The grey clouds made for a tumultuous sea. Still, boats were readied, nets expertly folded and people shouted back and forth before they set off. Their excitement was replaced by stoic silence once the boats hit the water.
While we were children, during school vacations we would go in the morning accompanying our grandfather, fool around a bit in the water and then watch the fishermen do their arduous and precarious job. They would start from two different ends of the beach and start dragging in the net from the sea. It took around 20 of these men to pull off the entire operation and it was crucial for them to get a good catch every time to make all the effort worthwhile.
My thoughts were interrupted by my father, who had taken to the role of bargaining with the boatmen. His garrulous attempts were met with scorn by most of them, but one enthusiastic vendor opened up after being offered a cigarette. His weather-beaten face lit up with a smile coupled with the stench of his previous night’s alcoholic tryst; he started rattling off a ‘fisherman’s woeful tale’. For the effort they put into living each day of their lives, what they get in return is almost nothing.
Though fishermen serve the community at the risk of their lives, yet they belong to the forgotten class. The governments have offered a variety of subsidies and incentives, allowing too many mechanised boats to operate, resulting in too many boats chasing too few fish. The rich coastline of the country has failed to open its treasure trove to this community who are crushed under ad hoc policies prompting many to take the extreme step.
Reality is a hard knock for most of them. Most of them live in a wretched hovel that does not have even the rudiments of sanitation. Their children play in the little bursts of sunlight throughout the day with the only expectation of getting two square meals a day.
Their lives do not prompt me to embrace vegetarianism, but it does show up a weird set of contrasts — my reality of earnings, lifestyle and their reality of just endless hardships. Like Kipling once said: ‘East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’
