With the early rays of the rising sun :

Rediscovering fishing in Sainthamaruthu

Jayanthi LIYANAGE in Kalmunai

When the first flurry of sun rays makes visible the Sainthamaruthu beach in Kalmunai, the scurrying sound of cart wheels alerts you that if you go out now, you can see the fishing boats drag in their first haul for the morning.

The carts have nothing to do with fishing. The riders scoop up sand and a pair of kinniyas, white bulls, rushes each cart to a building site. The wide spread activity on the coastline from Sainthamaruthu to Kalmunakudi and beyond is fishing. Hundreds of fishing boats attach a bobbing frill to the Sainthamaruthu beach, a few kilo meters away on the waves. They slumber there during the day but morning is the time for fishermen to drag in the nets, survey and weigh their catch, cut, chop and make ready for selling. Scores of fishermen edge the beach line. Their feelings are also on edge, expectant that at least this morning, Allah will bless them with a sizeable catch and not lead them to disappointment.

The morning the Daily News met them in early September, their hopes were running thin. In Kalmunakudi, one net had brought in only five kilos of fish. "This is the fishing season," a fisherman told us. "But no fish!" "Why?," we asked. "It is God you should ask," was his forlorn response, adding, "The first month of the year, we catch a lot of fish. The other months, not so good."

Akbar, another fisherman in Kalmunakudi expalined that the fishing boats need to head about 25 - 30 kilo meters to the open sea and throw in their nets to catch fish. By 9 - 10 in the morning, they returned with their haul. Naming the fish likely to be netted, in local parlance, he said, "In Kalmunakudi sea, you can catch parav, savara and thoru."

Akbar's brother-in-law who ran a small scale fish drying shed shared the dejection of fishermen, saying, "These days, business is good. But no goods!" A single line of skinned fish hung out to dry was his meagre produce. The mode of fishing practice prevalent in Kalmunakudi and its number of fisher folk was conveyed to us by Akbar. "We have 300 fishing boats," he said. "One boat is operated by three families so there are 900 fishing families here."

About 300 fishing boats are at the Sainthamaruthu sea too, a young employee who attended to the Daily News crew at Sea Breeze Restaurant and Guest Inn at Beach Road along the Sainthamaruthu sea front, informed us. The only luxury inn found in the area for many miles, it is owned by M.Y.M. Jaufer. The view from its rooms was what treated us with the strangely beautiful sights and sounds of Eastern Province sun rise, kinniya carts and the profusion of fishing boats anchored at sea off Sainthamaruthu Fishery Harbour.

On Beach Road of Sainthamaruthu, Mohamed Basheer sold katu fish and parav. He had been sea fishing for the past five years. "In this area, we catch a lot of hurullo," he said. As for bigger fish, the Sainthamaruthu sea yielded balaya, thalapath, maduwa and moru. As in Kalmunakudi, Basheer too commented that the catch was rather low but could not define a reason for it. He had sold katu fish and parav at prices as high as Rs.400 - 550 a kilo when the catch was poorer but on the morning the Daily News met him, he sold katu fish at Rs.100 per kilo and parav at Rs.200. Whether the gain was his or that of the buyer, we could not fathom. One fisherman thought that fish haul was bad post-tsunami.

As the morning wore on, fishermen in Sainthamaruthu sat on the beach in small groups and attended to odd jobs which needed to be done before the night fell and another venture of fishing commenced. Some mended fish nets. Driving on Beach Road, we also saw several buildings with names of people's companies of fishers, one being Muhathuwaram Fishing Employees' Co-operative Society Ltd. But they were closed and we could not meet the inmates. The ubiquitous coconut tree on down south beaches was replaced here by the Talipot palm tree.

The sea that fed the fishermen and nurtured their families had played traitor once, devouring all they loved and earned, so a Tsunami Warning Tower has been erected in Sainthamaruthu. At all crossroads turning inland from Beach Road, which runs parallel to the sea, evacuation routes are marked and safe areas indicated. P.M.M.A. Cader who lives in Maruthamunai, a few kilometers away from Sainthamaruthu and corresponds to Thinakaran, our sister Tamil newspaper, told us how he and his wife were whisked away at no warning by the swift tide of tsunami. They were lucky to save their lives.

We did not see any men or women on the beach enjoying the sea breeze as we have seen on Galle Face Esplanade. The employee at the Inn told us that they came to the beach on Friday, the weekly holiday in Sainthamaruthu. The other days, they were too busy with work to squander their precious hours in leisure.

In Sainthamaruthu, or for that matter, on the roads we sped along in Kalmunai, we did not see a single woman in trousers, as we see in Mahiyangana or other predominantly Sinhala areas. Muslim women wore abhaya, the caftans, over the garments they had underneath, and head scarves without the face veil. Only the very young children were in short skirts while the older ones were dressed in skirts up to their ankles. Tamil women wore saris or shalwars.

Our entry to Sainthamaruthu, an essentially a Muslim area, was during the fasting season. Some shops closed during the day and opened in the evening. Communication barriers were quite a few as many did not understand Sinhala and we managed with hand gestures.

A certain degree of English knowledge was there. But people were friendly and accommodating and did not regard us with suspicion which is sometimes directed at strangers in some parts of the country.

M.I.M. Azhar, Maligaikadu group correspondent for Lake House in Sainthamaruthu, invited us to a break-fast ceremony. A number of family members and relatives sat on the floor in a circle, with each one's portion of food and drink in front, with women on ground floor and men on upper floor.