A sea of memories: How sixteen fisherwomen capture their drowning world

As tides devour villages, 16 women with cameras fight to save their vanishing heritage. An exhibition in Chennai showcases their startling images.

A fisherwoman ventures into black waters of the sea in Ganjam, Odisha, to catch prawn. | Photo Credit: Ch. Pratima

In Odisha’s town of Ganjam, there were once two girls who played on the beach, in peals of laughter as they ran into a glistening blue sea. Now, the beach exists only in their memories: the high tides have devoured the sand bed. 

This is one of the stories captured in photographs taken by Ch. Pratima, a fisherwoman, displayed in Chennai’s Lalit Kala Akademi as part of an ongoing seven-day exhibition in collaboration with People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) titled “Chronicles of the Tides: Migration, Conflict and Climate.” It is open to the public until September 29.  The exhibition presents 400 photographs taken by 16 fisherwomen across the fishing communities of Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu and Ganjam in Odisha. 

Both towns share a rich history with the sea; this connection has not only transformed the town’s people and communities, but the very landscape itself. Nagapattinam is an old Port Town, dating back to the Chola empire, when it was called Naval Pattinam or “The city of ships.” Today, it remains a leading fishing port in Tamil Nadu, known for its high fish production. The State ranks third in the country for fish yield production. Odisha ranks as the fourth largest fish producing State in the country owing to its extensive coastline, rivers, and water bodies.

Fishermen fixing and loading their nets onto boats as they head out to catch fish. | Photo Credit: Karthik. B

Historically, fishing in Ganjam has been dominated by local communities who have relied on artisanal methods. In Ganjam, fishing is not only a source of income but also a cultural staple, with traditional fishing methods passed down generations. 

“Although most of the structures I photographed have been swallowed by the sea, because these photos exist, I can tell the next generation that this village existed, that we were here,” says Pratima. 

In one of Ganjam’s tiny fishing harbours, fish lay in rows beneath the sun. These are fresh fish that did not get sold at the market. To sell them, they must be preserved for future sales. Women rub them with salt, wash them, and dry them under the sun for two or three days, turning them into dry fish, and giving them a longer shelf life. It is this process that K. Nagamma’s photos depict. Nagamma explains how each photograph carries a story. She points to a photo devoid of nets and fish: here, a group of women eat together out of their tiffin boxes.   

“These are the women involved in the drying process. They eat right where they make the dried fish,” says Nagamma, pointing to another photo of a small hut made of wooden logs and plastic tarp. In the photograph, a swarm of flies buzz around the women. “They just swat them away and continue to eat. They have no other place to eat as their homes are very far away [from the place the fishes are dried].”

None of the 16 women, ranging from the ages 20 to 50, had ever held a camera in their hands or even knew they had stories to tell until they met photographer Palani Kumar who mentored them through a three-month photography workshop conducted earlier this year by Dakshin Foundation, an NGO.  

They spent much of that time with their lenses turned towards the fishing communities they were raised in. Much like the photographers, the subjects of the photos had never been in front of a camera and often covered their faces or walked away feeling shy, asking whether they were important enough to be photographed.  

A fisherwomen in Ganjam sitting under the hot sun making Enduchepala or dried fish. | Photo Credit: Ch. Pratima

“Whenever they tried to capture random scenery, they hesitated because the camera was a foreign object to both [photographer and subject]. I asked them to persist, and explained what it was they were trying to do with the camera. For the first time, the stories of these people are being recorded through their own perspectives,” Kumar, the curator of the exhibition, told Frontline. “The story is being told by the people of the community rather than someone from the upper echelons of society or even a media professional who would still be an outsider. These photos are a very important record in the history of photography.”   

For Kumar, this exhibition is both personal and a hat-tip to Ambedkar’s ethos of giving back to society. His mother was also a fisherwoman, and he grew up in a house that always smelled of fish. “Every favourite memory of mine belongs to the water. Water [the sea] is what heals me,” he adds. 

Children in the fishing community often grow up playing on the shores of the beach. Suganthi captures the joy of two young girls chasing after each other. | Photo Credit: Suganthi Manickavel

The sea is an inextricable part of their being: it brings them comfort, but also leaves scars on their bodies. In Nagapattinam, armed with eri koodais (handwoven baskets) in their mouths, women sink into the deep waters hunting for prawns. Suganthi Manickavel, 27, captures the faces of these women, the blisters and cuts etched into their palms and toes. “When I began to take these photographs, I was able to understand my community and the struggles we face in our day to day lives,” she says. 

Hospitals and healthcare are a luxury for many fishermen and they often live with such bruises and even serious health conditions without ever getting treated for them. Pratima explains is a never-ending cycle they are stuck in: “If it’s a small cold or fever, they take whatever they have at home and go to work hoping it will go away soon. Only when it persists for say, 10 days, do they go to the hospital and get themselves treated. Then they are told they have more serious conditions like high blood pressure or heart disease. When the doctor prescribes medicines, they can only buy what they can afford. And so, our ailments continue.” 

Apart from these inflictions, soil mining has added a new layer of to their concerns. Due to its geographical location, Odisha is rich in minerals such as manganese, iron ore, and coal. While large companies come in hordes to dig up sand, they upset the natural ecosystem as well as the carefully crafted harmony between the landscape and fishing communities. This causes high tides of the sea to surge in and destroy homes, rob people of their livelihoods, and submerge the shores where turtles nest. A Zoological Survey of India study, which tracked the nesting of Olive Ridley turtles from 1990 to 2022 found that the nesting grounds in Odisha have had a staggering 14km shift northwards due to severe coastal erosion. 

In Nagapattinam, fisherwomen set up nets to trap prawns. | Photo Credit: Suganthi Manickavel

According to Nagamma, the rate of migration has also increased drastically: “When the fish declined in my village, migration became survival, families had to think of the future of their children as well. Many came to Chennai to work in construction and others moved to coastal regions in Mangalore, Mumbai, and Kerala.” 

The fishing community has no stable support from the government. Whenever the community voices their problems or difficulties they are facing, government officials dismiss them. Months during the fishing ban period are the hardest for the community as the government offers each fisherman a measly Rs.15,000 as compensation and most of the time they never receive the money or receive only a portion of it, compelling them to scramble to find work in order to feed their families.  

An elderly resident of Ganjam leaves his house behind as the sea water has finally reached his doorstep. | Photo Credit: Ch. Pratima

Kumar hopes that more women get to hold cameras and dream beyond the coastline. He points to one of Pratima’s photos that he’s been looking at for a while. The photo captures an old man leaving his house, holding on to a door: “The door is the only thing they can carry of the house, the only thing they can remember it by. The rest will belong to the sea. In a year’s time, Pratima’s house too will be under the sea. Through this exhibition, we hope to bring awareness about the fishing community, to bring about some form of change no matter how many years it takes.”