Vinesh Vincent is perhaps the name now most familiar to the entire Poonthura fishing village. At 16 years of age, he is the youngest of the 90 men who had gone out to sea on the day before Cyclone Ockhi hit these regions. He happens to be one of the bravest too. Everyone here shares the story of how he removed his T-shirt, braving the biting cold, and gave it to Muthappan, the oldest person in his boat, so that he would stay warm.
“Vinesh had studied only till second standard. Even though he used to go to school, he never sat in class, and preferred to spend his time by the sea, near the fishing boats. He learnt the tricks of the trade by himself, and started going to the sea two years back. I had stopped fishing more than nine years back. At such a young age, he was the only member of the family who used to earn regularly. He had work for 2-3 days every week,” says his father Vincent.
Stejin, Vinesh’s elder brother, who occasionally goes for fishing from Kochi, says that he would not go back to the seas again. “I would rather drive an autorickshaw,” he says.
