Kovalam picks up the pieces
Jamaludeen is repairing and building catamarans
at top speed. A village social security system is taking care of orphans and
widows. Although devastated by the tsunami, the fisher folk of Kovalam in Tamil
Nadu are busy rebuilding their lives
K Jamaludeen, in his 50s, sits in his thatched shed and works his tools over the mara tree, brought from Kerala. He is a third-generation boat-maker from the village of Kovalam , 30 km from Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which bore the brunt of the December 26 tsunami. Bent over six oddly-shaped logs, Jamaludeen cuts them in a coarse tongue-and-groove pattern that gives the concave boat hull a snug fit, without the use of nails. With his sander, the man smoothens the grain of the wood until the sturdy traditional fishing vessel is just about comfortable for its owner. His hands fly nimbly over the coir ropes that hold the boat together.
Jamaludeen is the man-of-the-moment in this tsunami-hit village. Not because of some little-known brave act, but because he is the fastest traditional catamaran-maker between the Vishakhapatnam and Cuddalore coast, chorus the fishermen. Within a fortnight he has made 20 catamarans seaworthy. He takes a breather, only because the replacement wood has still not arrived from Kerala.
“Every single fishing village has been hit and there is a shortage of wood used specifically to make catamarans. So we are using the logs currently available to set right those that are repairable. The new boats have to wait for the next consignment,” says Jamaludeen.
Kovalam had a fleet of 350 boats, of which 110 were traditional catamarans. Today, only a handful are seaworthy.
For Jamaludeen, it’s been a return to the good old days of frenetic boat-making. “I remember travelling with my father for work all over the eastern coast till Vishakhapatnam , as a 13-year-old boy. But the last 10 years have not been as good as very few traditional fishermen bring their catamarans for repair, preferring to upgrade to fibre boats,” he says.
From a time when only wealthy fishermen could afford them, fibre boats have now become a common sight. “The boat is lighter and, with an outboard motor, can travel deeper into the sea. Fishing is also less of a chore and the time we spend at sea has been halved,” say K Jalendran and P Pandian, both fishermen who own catamarans but are waiting to upgrade to fibre boats.
Meanwhile, Jamaludeen is back at his trade. “The new boats will be ready soon. It will only be a matter of weeks before they return to sea,” he says.
Kovalam is unique in the sense that while other district collectors were entreating fishermen to venture out to sea again, Jalendran and his neighbours were yearning to return to the element in which they are most comfortable. “What is there for a fisherman to be scared of the sea? We know each rock in the coastal area, and the sea (except for that once) has never been our foe. We have to keep going. It is only those at home who will be afraid for us,” says P Pandian, lifting up his three-year-old son.
Both the government and voluntary organisations are working with the fisher folk to help them overcome their newfound fear of the sea. Says Dr Ranjit Valath Rajasekaran of Prasad Chikitsa, a Maharashtra-based voluntary organisation: “Post-traumatic stress among the fisher folk needs to be addressed immediately. This has to be done both by using medicines and through counselling. And work is the best way to get their minds off the disaster.”
A network of voluntary organisations has adopted Kovalam, and rehabilitation is going on full swing. The money required to rebuild the village is monumental. Prasad Chikitsa itself has spent around Rs 10 lakh towards the repair of boats, while the government put in Rs 13 lakh.
The successful return of the fishermen to the sea hinges on their traditional social structure which offers security to those who have lost earning members of their family. A Jayaprakash, fisherman panchayat leader for the village of Kovalam , says parents who lost their sons to the sea and widows are taken care of by the village collectively. “Every fisherman sets aside part of his catch, and the women who sell the fish segregate money from their sale. This is returned to the village community fund that helps the destitute.” The fishermen also pay a small tax into a panchayat account that is maintained by a committee of five. This contingency fund is now coming in useful, although it is transitory.
As Dr Ranjith counsels them to return to the sea with the limited nets they have, other idiosyncrasies of this coastal existence surface. Who takes precedence? The freshwater fishermen whose hunting grounds -- the neighbouring Muthukadu lagoon -- and boats were also affected? Or the marine fishermen? While the freshwater fishermen can return immediately to their more protected environment in less sturdy boats, the nets and other resources are common property and will have to be shared.
While the Sunday village meeting makes its own plans for rehabilitation, ironing out any differences that surface, the government is lost in its bureaucracy. “They came here to distribute compensation for the dead and property loss. We have not seen any official here since then. If it were not for the voluntary organisations we would still be waiting for the government, which does not seem to have a policy,” says R Janakiraman, an inland-cum-marine fisherman in Kovalam.
But every day brings something to look forward to. New wood from Kerala, new fibre boats -- all could arrive within the course of the next few weeks. And the fishermen are sanguine about earning back some of their lost wealth. “The sea has given us a lot, she will continue to do so,” they say confidently. Their only dissatisfaction is with the government, which, they say, did not give as generously.