Feature: It is a fish market, and it is business as usual

Nine rupees, nine rupees, nine rupees? Chellamma called out, auctioning the day's catch.

Fishermen were busy dumping the netted lobsters, prawns, shrimps, crabs and pomfret into respective baskets. Vendors moved around selling Gold Club soft drinks. Even crows made the most of the day by picking the discarded fish.

It was business as usual at the Nagapattinam harbor. Tsunami had come and gone, gone even out of the immediate memory of fishermen and women, who were now busy moving on with their lives, worried about the day's income.

The harbor was one of the most hit ones by the killer tsunami last year.

Chellamma bargained hard, hurling abuses at other fisherwomen, who would buy her fish to sell it in other markets on profit.

Colourfully-painted Perumatthal, Ramya, Anjerayar and other similarly-named mechanized boats anchored in the backwaters were being swayed by the water currents at the harbor, which had been destroyed by the tsunami, but has now come back to life. The destroyed boats had been mended and were taking back men to sea.

While men get the catch and segregate it at the harbor, women take on from there and sell it at the market. It all seems normal but they tell you there is some difference.

"The catch is not too good anymore. Before tsunami, the catch used to be better. Now, men work harder for the same catch," fisherwoman Asha said.

Yet, the place is full of activity. And you see men and women work enthusiastically.

Meanwhile, at some distance in another backwater, work is on to have a new fish-landing harbor in place. A proper fish auction hall is being constructed. Once ready, the old Nagapattinam harbor will be relocated there.

The place will be new and may be for the better, but work will just be the same. And once again, the cycle of cleaning, segregating, auctioning and selling will begin. And Chellamma will still fight, maybe even harder with other women, to make the most of the catch that menfolk will have fetched.

Lives were lost here, but life goes on and these tsunami-hit people, even after having lost their belongings, or even friends and families, show you that you have to have the will to live on.

Shanker blows the conch hard. "It's good," trying to convince the man at the sea shore to buy it. "Take it for 10 rupees," he pleads.

But the visitor walks away from his shell stall, and Shanker gets back calling others to check out on what he has.

Shanker is a fisherman. A fisherman who now sells shells at the sea shore. The monster waves took his boat away on that Black Sunday. And he received no compensation.

Source: Xinhua