“Call me an activist on the coast,” declares Sahitya Akademi award winner R.N. Joe D’ Cruz. His novel, Korkai , tracing 100 years of history of the fishermen in Tuticorin fetched him the award last year. He says he wanted to document the lives of fishermen, their pangs and predicaments.
“Our literary works have not done justice to those who live by the sea. At best, they have glorified the fishermen but not thrown light on the neithal landscape (the sea and the surrounding land) and its darker side,” says Joe, who spent his formative years on the seashore of Uvari near Tirunelveli.
He was inspired by his maternal grandfather Thomai Anthrai (Thomas Andrew). “Thomai used to narrate a lot of stories about our leaders and their sacrifice for the country. Even before I understood the meaning of ‘ Bharath Mata Ki Jai’ , I gave my full throat to the slogan,” he says.
Images of people dragging the body of a fisherman washed ashore and the sight of his wife and seven children wailing altered his outlook on life. “I was six years old. Malai Uruttiyan was a strong man and the sea reduced him to nothing. I was shaken by the sight of his hand with missing fingers. Death raised a big question in me about existence and helped me to start life afresh,” he says. Joe developed an interest in documenting the unrecorded like what happens when fisherman throw the fishing net into the sea and get accidentally caught in it and is pulled into the sea.
His first novel, Aazhi Sool Ulagu, has many such incidents of fishermen using catamarans. An insider’s account of lives of fishermen, it used with incredible precision the dialect distinct to those living along the coast of Tuticorin, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari districts with an incredible precision. An outsider may find it tough to comprehend but the way he narrates the incidents is very interesting. “It took me three months to write the book and another three months to polish it" he says. “I was in a different world while writing and even my family members feared to come near me. People apparently told Joe that he behaved differently while writing. That he was ecstatic while writing as he relived his childhood days and would sometimes laugh at midnight. I believe I got a chance to see and relive several incidents from the past and now I have a responsibility to pass this information to the next generation. I have understood the importance and relevance of the facts that I am delivering,” he adds. Korkai is all about fishermen on sailing boats, their culture, profession, business and pearl diving. It was once a buzzing port city of the early Pandyas. “I believe the present day Tuticorin should have been the Korkai of the past,” he says.
From Sangam literature to English poetry, Joe’s knowledge of literature is exemplary and he handles both with equal felicity. His book may belong to the fiction genre but the story is full of real-life incidents. “Any work of art will succeed only if there is an element of truth. I am neither a voracious reader nor a prolific writer but I read for learning. What I have written is from my personal experience. I have learnt a lot from my failures. Each moment is a lesson for me and each individual is a book,” he says. Joe has also made a documentary film Towards Dawn on the problems faced by the fishermen at the Palk Straits. And his Vidiyaadha Pozhudhugal is a Tamil documentary which deals with the same topic in a different dimension.
Enathu Saname is a collection of video interviews that addresses the problems of the fishing community and Akkini Kunjondru Kanden is an awakening call for the communities of the coast in audio format. He has also penned the dialogues for the movie Maryan.
He is now working on his next book on mercantile marine. “I am planning to talk about imports and exports and life around the harbour.”
