A t 4 am on a mid-September day, the harbour at Cuddalore, nested in an estuary, was lit by streetlights and masthead lights from docked bo...
At 4 am on a mid-September day, the harbour at Cuddalore, nested in an estuary, was lit by streetlights and masthead lights from docked boats. The boats had timed their arrival from the sea for a Sunday, the busiest day for the fish market in the city, which is a 30-minute drive south of the colonial villas and chic cafes of Puducherry. Many trawlers had arrived after a seven-day voyage, traversing up and down the Coromandel coast, some going as far as Andhra Pradesh for a good catch.
On one trawler, with “Vaazhga Valamudan” – Live Long and Prosper – inscribed on the hull, workers in lungis and T-shirts tipped big blue plastic barrels on to the floor. Out came a flood of thawed ice water, leaving behind chilled fish whose smell hung low and heavy in the air. The workers sorted the fish from the barrel into different baskets. They passed some baskets to women vendors who waited by the boats, and hauled the rest over a gangway onto a tarmac, where more vendors awaited them, at a makeshift auction site.
As the cacophony of the auction filled the air, Bhagyam, a middle-aged woman with a fading smear of ash on her forehead,...
