Part 3-Gone with the sea: Thrown out of work and workplace.
Yesudas William
Nautical times Kerala.
When compared with other districts of Kerala, Thiruvananthpuam has got maximum number of women who earn a livelihood by fish vending. Women of the coastal belt aged between 18 to 80 are among them. The pandemic affected their lives turning it topsy-turvy. From Pozhiyoor and Thoothur in Tamilnadu to Varkala the story is the same with minor variations.
When the women lost their income their families lost the sheen of their lives. They used to leave their houses before the sunrise and return home after selling their wares and collecting a day’s victuals. They were the powerful symbols of liberated women of Kerala.
In houses cf Anjuthengu coast, which is being haunted by sea erosions and tragedies, I saw hundreds of women who had completely lost their livelihood. They were the main pillars of their families. As many of their husbands were alcoholics, these women were the sole breadwinners of their families. When the pandemic struck they lost their livelihood’s. They are now withering away their lives calculating the depths of the debt traps that have befallen and dreaming about escaping from them.
In Kulamuttom, 24 KM away from Anjuthengu, I met Sherly and Lourde, sisters who were fish vendors. They are suffocating in their tiny house for the last six months without earning a penny. They are in their fifties and have been selling fish for the last 20 years. When the COVID look-down was declared the were forcibly thrown out of the market they used to occupy. They are out of work from then onwards. Even though the harbors have opened there is no takers for the fish as the virus has spread panic among people, says Benedicta, a fish vendor, who is 60.
These people’s livelihood have been encroached by new fish stalls and Watts App groups. During the pandemic the only business that thrived was fish vending. But it has benefitted only the NewGen businessmen. Those poor women have lost their only jobs. Nobody is talking about this and nobody is listening. “We were evicted from the markets and when we started selling fish from the roadsides people simply threw away our fish” says Janette of Anjuthengu. When we used to go for fish vending people will give us good food and clothes in addition to money she adds. She fears that if she can resume her trade.
Janette got married at the age of 18 and got resettled here and took the fish basket as her husband Norbert was an alcoholic. Her elder daughters are also in the same trade. She restarted the trade but the business was dull. Now she is trying to dry the stock she holds.
“Matsyafed, a government agency, had promised them two wheelers and kiosks. But nothing materilsed. Now they can’t even repay the small loans they have taken from the self help groups”, says Felsica, a coordinator of the fish workers cooperative society. The spread of COVID is rampant here nobody is willingly going for the tests.They don’t think that the good old times will be back. They have been thrown out of their work and workplaces. They simply gaze at a bleak future. This is one of greatest tragedies that Kerala coast witnessed during the pandemic.
