We v/s they?

A white sail boat bobbing over shimmering, crystal blue water, a pleasant sun and just the right amount of breeze that plays with your hair without tangling it. It would have made the perfect cover picture for a resort brochure, if it would not have been for five frightened faces.

Perched daintily on the rim of the boat with her legs dangling over, placed one of the other, and big diving glasses framing her tanned face, Malar looked as if she had stepped out of a movie set. While us, four students and our accompanying teacher had expressions befitting a roller coaster ride. And forty-eight hours before, only excitement, uncertainty and curiosity had been on our agenda and the mention of a seven-hour boat ride with women sea-divers would have surely elicited a few guffaws.

The mention of a ‘covering deprivation’ trip had caused our minds to conjure up myriad images of adventure. Armed with instructions about modesty and adjustment, we set off on our quest to explore a different facet of life that had been a part of our city-bred ignorance.

Our group had been deputed to the temple city of Rameshwaram, renowned for its beaches and coral reefs. Our lodging arrangements had been made with the KTDC hotel located at the tip of the island. Images of a hotel overlooking a strip of beach and dreams of waking up to a sunrise were shattered when the smell of stale flowers, rotting flowers mixed with the salty sea air assaulted our nostrils. Picture replaced smell, and as we turned the bend the beach came to our view. We had come expecting a beach but found ourselves looking at a sea of human bodies instead.

Naked torsos and bobbing heads and pieces of garlands and polythene bags, all were a part of the gruesome reality that had dealt nature a blow.

The next day, like a balm to soothe our wounds, nature beckoned to us in the form of the boat ride. In order for us to get a glimpse into the daily travails of women divers who dive for sea-weed, we were to go with them on their daily boat ride. The ride was an adventure, not just because we were aboard a sail boat with a billowing white sail but for it being our window to a life that had evaded our urban minds all these years.

Come six ‘o’ clock in the morning, and we were walking on an unlit patch of a beach, where our companions for the day would be awaiting us. We made our way to the shore, our way faintly lit by the moonlight, our sandals, squishing against the moist sand, the roar of the sea quickening our heartbeats and our pace.

A couple of tarpaulin tents stood on the shore surrounded by a dark carpet of some vegetation, which we later learned was seaweed being dried. The sea-divers with whom we were to spend the day with, requested us to wait while the women cooked the food for the day. We sat in the tents, listening to a couple of infants gurgle nearby while the women sat hunched over their hearths, their body shielding the fire from the rough sea breeze.

The golden glow of the fire illuminated the belongings that the tent housed. Few bundles of cloth sat in one corner while fishing nets had been heaped into a blue pile in another. We had come expecting ‘poverty’ and ‘deprivation’, but the paucity that confronted us, still shook us. As we stared at the bareness of the settlement, the only thought that crossed my mind was the sheer inequality that pervades life.

Soon, the simmering of mustard seeds followed by the smell of frying fish and clatter of steel dabbas indicated that our journey was soon to begin. And then, here we were, after a good couple of hours of grappling with the waves.

The women in our boat, Maryamma, Malar, Kunjamma and others were poised to enter the water, warriors of the sea, armed with their glasses, scrappers(an instrument used for cutting the seaweed from the bed) and tin slides as foot pads. As we saw skin touch water and the involuntary shudders, the harshness of their livelihoods revealed, our arms had goose bumps as well.

After hours of searching, selecting and sorting, the women hauled themselves up with their catch, gratifying beads of water replacing the globules of perspiration, signifying the end of the day’s ordeal. The way back to the shore proved to be more of a challenge. The boat danced to the waves’ tune, the salty sea spray drenching us and the sounds of the boat’s motor drowning out the roar of the sea. We returned to the shore, drenched in water and glee.

Our tryst with the sea did not end at that. As children we had often been shushed into silence by our teacher for making the classroom a fish-market. One early morning visit to the jetty was all it took for me to cringe with horror at the hubbub and silently bless my teacher for her patience. The lazy stretch of beach was an exhibit of fish and people. The acrid smell of frying lobsters, crabs and fish, and spicy chundal with grated coconut, the beach was a foodie’s delight.

As the overpowering stench of fresh fish, dried fish and stale fish engulfed us and the boats bearing the fresh catch slowly touched the shore, the decibels went up a notch higher. Crows and kites circling the boats swiftly swooped and made away with small silver fish in their beaks and the same ritual was repeated in the human world. Small crabs tittered away as the crates of wide-mouthed fish were upturned onto the sand and the mound was immediately surrounded by auctioneers. As the mound slowly reduced to a pile, of smaller fish, huge crates of ice were ushered in. We saw the beach, an urban realm for fun and frolic in a new light- an embodiment of the struggle to live.

Small thatched huts, gleaming silver fish reflecting sunlight, bent backs, taut muscles, bleached hair on tanned skins and shimmering droplets of sweat on the brow and-for these fisher folk hard work was a religion.

As the time for us to depart grew close, deprivation for us had gone beyond a story idea. Finally the ignorance that had shielded a reality had withered away. ‘They’, the deprived, the poor, the needy-became ‘we’- we who had been deprived of the knowledge about the co-existing, the lesser privileged lives. The ‘dep trip’ had enriched us by introducing us to the world of poverty.