The Sun was playing hide and seek in the clouds at day break, when the fishermen were returning with their catch, after having been at the sea at night. They were in the backwaters on their way back home.
I got an opportunity to talk to one fisherman later that day. He has been a fisher man since childhood and after forty years, he felt awful that he did not have training in any other profession, as non-motorised fishing is no more income generating. He goes out into the sea at night three times in a week, and would return with a scanty catch, highly inadequate to sustain his family. It is occasional two or three times in a month, that he comes back with a boatful of fish. This trend has been the pattern in the recent five years. Earlier on, the catch was so good that he needed to go out only once or twice in a week.
He spoke about three of his children, whom he wants to educate. He does not see them in this profession, unlike the five generational practice of children in his ancestral families, inheriting the profession of parents.
I heard a former finance minister of India making a point about the living conditions of people in Inida, where about 16 percent of population still lives below the poverty line. But the macroeconomists quote the GDP and project that India is moving upwards economically. His observation was that the GDP is going up because of the increase in population. What is decisive about measuring the wellness of people economically, is the per capita income, which has gone upward only marginally.
The creation of the new middle class in the last 20 years was by moving those from the low socio economic strata to the middle class. Proportionally the trickle down effect of better prospects economically did not reach the poorest in the society. Their upward mobility is not the concern of the current capitalist oriented economists and the political party governing the country now.
Both boats in this photo did not have boatful of fish. May be a few kilos of fish hidden int the nets!
A cloudy morning with not so much good news for the returning fishermen! They faced sadness one more time at the end of toil of a night!
The good times they long for evade them!
The fisherman I talked to, told me about the co-operative society that he belongs to, which has the practice of giving interest free loan if the fisherman would pay back the borrowed money in two weeks time. It is a provision, that they do not go hungry, if they did not catch enough on a few occasions in two weeks.
Life is a cloud of disappointment for some while many live in the lap of luxury in an indulgent manner!
This question is before me!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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