For days, Mohan and Praveen secretly built a catamaran from castaway wood. They stowed it in a safe spot when done and waited for their maiden voyage. One evening, when the elders were not around, the two slipped away; it was their chance! They launched their catamaran into the waves. “It sailed so well,” recalls nine-year-old Mohan from Nochi Kuppam. “We even cast a fishing line into the waters; but a huge fish cut it off,” he says as he watches his father’s colleagues spread the day’s catch along a road off the Marina. Mohan has just lugged the lot from a boat to be sorted and sold. It’s not even 9 a.m. and the sun burns everything it touches. But Nochi Kuppam refuses to give in. For, the sun brings with it business.
People from the city throng the strip of road behind the lighthouse to shop for seafood — it is an experience to buy fish from the men who caught it. For, if you’re lucky, you would get to meet seasoned fishermen like Neelagandan who would patiently explain the characteristics of the fish he sold. “The one with the stripes is called kattagisa . The darker one is mandhigisa . The long silvery one is the vala meen ,” he points out. But his favourite is the vavval . “It’s soft and delicious. Tastes like chicken.”
Neelagandan is going to have a long day. He went to sea at 4 a.m. and returned at 8 a.m. He will sit under the sun till he sells the last of his catch. “I can choose to sell my fish to a vendor and go home. But I can make an extra Rs.100 or so if I sell it myself,” he says.
At the Kuppam, it’s the women in the family who sell the fish the men catch. Mothers, wives and sisters negotiate with haggling consumers to sell their ware at a price that’s fair. Voices ring out “ Uyir meen uyir meen !” (Live fish) “ Kolambukku rusiya irukkum ” (Will make a tasty curry). There are arguments over prices — “ Po po thirumba inga dhan varuva ” (You will come back to me) and quantity “Ada innum rendu podu” (give me two more pieces)… On a Sunday morning, the Kuppam is as alive as ever.
Beyond the row of vendors and past the women squatting with arugamanais to clean fish for customers are the colourful boats and bundled-up nets. It is here that the men mend their nets and oil their engines. Karthik and his cousins joke about a Tamil song as they toss fish from a net into a basket by a blue boat. The day’s catch hasn’t been good; but they have learned to take it in their stride.
This stretch of sand by the Marina has hundreds of stories to tell — stories of men who caught a mammoth shark, and those of waves as tall as mountains. Here are people like Durai who refuse to give up fishing despite old age, and kids like Mohan who want to become engineers and not fishermen like their fathers. This is because life as a fisherman is full of uncertainties. He might come back with his net bursting with shrimp one day; he might spend hours at sea on other days, risking heavy winds and choppy waters but come back empty-handed. The Kuppam reflects these moods of its inhabitants.
An old woman in a faded cotton sari has her eye on the sea as she chats with a friend in one of the shanties. “Aren’t you selling anything?” I ask her and she casts an irritated look at me. “My son isn’t back from the sea yet,” she sighs. I decide to leave her alone and say, “He is probably late since he caught a lot of fish.” At this, she clasps her palms in a vanakkam and says, “ Nandri .”
