Category: Science of the Seas

Of late, our morning conversations have been about storms, reading storms and the risky business of fishing in storm-prone times. Just a week ago, the Met Department issued an unlikely “Yellow Alert” predicting isolated heavy rains in Chennai over the weekend of 4-5 March. Unlikely because this is not storm season. Palayam anna does not recall a single storm in the Tamil month of Masi.

We spent the week waiting for a storm that threatened to come but never showed up, at least not in Chennai. There were mild to substantial showers further inland. But the coast was clear. Clouds were visible, the winds swung tentatively between north (vaadai) and north-northwest (kun vaadai). On friday, the dreaded kun vaadai set in as though it had come to stay for a few days. That would have normally signaled the onset of a storm, but there was still no action. The sea has been choppy and fishers stayed home. In an audio message, he told me not to wait for the rain. “Choppy seas and kun vaadai should mean rain. Even the scientists have said “prepare for rain.” But why isn’t it raining?” he asked himself in his manner of speaking, and then answered his own question. “For that, you have to wonder why the nearshore sea is rough even though the wind and the shore current are from the same direction, the north. But I sense a strong olni tendency (a phenomenon where the sea pushes landward) accompanied by a swift mid-sea thendi current flowing from south to north. Thendi currents break up the rains.” That’s exactly what happened – no rain.

Soaked firm by last night’s tide, the beach sand made for easy walking. We got to the river mouth quicker than usual, and settled down on the still moist berm to stare out at sea. About four months ago, Palayam chided me for not taking my lessons seriously. “You are always in a hurry to return home. You can’t learn just by listening to me. The sea, winds and skies change radically within minutes. You need to sit and observe. Spend some time just staring out,” he said.

But it is not always just staring out. This morning, for instance, prompted by all the talk in the media about the storm that never came, Anna began narrating a story about one that did, and with deadly consequences. “Aruvathu marathukarar thaaliya aruththa Kōṭai puyal,” he began, narrating a story about a summer storm that widowed 60 young women in the village. “Did this happen in our village Anna?” I asked, shocked. “Yes. Several generations ago. My father told me the story as one that happened when his grandfather was a young man. But listen to the story. Where it happened doesn’t matter, what happened and why the story is told is what matters,” Palayam replied.

The vaikasi sea was calm and blue. Barely two hours old, the hot summer sun was already burning shimmering mirages on the expanse of brown sand stretching out from the hamlet. Fishing had been good. The old man had hooked a boatload of kezhangan and keesan at the kadavaadu just yesterday, and not too far out at sea either. At 6.5 fathoms, the kadavaadu is a stretch of sandy sea floor covered by a layer of mud and slush washed in from the river during the previous monsoon. Through the year, the sea would cover it with sand until the next monsoon brought in a fresh load of black silt and mud, building a brown-black multilayered submarine sandwich on the ocean floor. The kadavaadu is a good place for near-shore fish like keesan and kezhangan.

There were more lucrative pari meen (large commercially valuable fish) further out at sea. But venturing too far into the sea during the months of chithirai-vaikasi (mid-April to mid-June) was risky. This was the season for the fearsome kodai (Kōṭai) puyal (summer storm). This is also the time when the warm, pre-monsoon breeze blows east from beyond the western ghats. It has been three years since we last had a summer storm, Palayam says.

There was much excitement on the beach that day. Tempted by the old man’s haul the previous day, every able-bodied youngster in the village was readying to get their share of the fish today. Early in the morning, when the tide was low, the men were out hunting ili poochi (mole crab) and matti (clam) to take with them as fish-bait. The old man was quietly loading up his kuthiri (solo) kattumaram (catamaran) with essentials – water, bait, hooks and lines, seeni (anchor), alavu kal (plumb line), thala (paddle) and a bag made of woven palmyra fronds called sikkom to carry home the day’s catch. His fingers flew with a mind of their own as he moved around the craft securing the fastenings that held the logs together. Sails were not needed. They were not going far. The youngsters were all teamed up in groups of two and three, each team on a separate larger craft.

By mid-morning, most of the kattumarams had crossed the surf-line. Some were already anchored at the kadavaadu. The kodai winds blowing from the shore caused the maram to drag east and away from the anchor lining the maram prow to land and kada (stern) to the east.

Kezhangan and keesan are small fish, each weighing about 50-100 grams. The bait couldn’t be threaded whole. The old man chopped up the clam meat to small bits, and threaded a bit to each of the three hooks suspended from a line. He dropped two lines, one to the north and the other to the south of the maram, with each line loosely secured to the big toe on each foot. “It is easy to sense it when the fish takes the bait,” Palayam explained.

The shore breeze seemed to be slowing. Vaikasi is notorious for day-time storms, just as the chithirai is for night storms. All around him, the young men from Urur were merrily hauling in the catch. The kadavaadu was in a giving mood today. The winds had dropped to an ominous calm. Looking up to scan the northwestern skies with concern, the old man sounded an alarm to the young ones in the maram nearby. Bad news came from the kun vaadai (north northwest), the direction from which deadly storm winds blow in this part of the coast. “It looks like a storm is brewing. May be good to be prepared to haul anchor and get back to safety,” he warned. The guys looked at him as though he was crazy. The party had just begun; every maram was hauling in the fish as fast as they could thread the bait and drop the line.

Barring the mappu (the eerie calm), there were no other signs. Shore was in sight. No clouds on the horizon. But the old man hadn’t grown old by taking it easy while at sea. Especially during these two months, he was always on the lookout for bad news while at sea. And then he saw it. A dreaded gopura-maasi had formed in the kun vaadai skies. Shaped like the gopuram (tower) of a temple, this isolated lump of a cloud doesn’t look like it is capable of any mischief. Pulling in the seeni (anchor), he let his maram adrift as he packed up his gear. The gopura-maasi had all the tell-tale signs of the dreaded kodai puyal (summer storm). A light, white puffy tapering tower sitting atop a dense black mass of a cloud. And then a streak of minvadu (lightning), followed by a kodi minvaadu that lit up the western sky in a patchwork of brilliant streaks.

“Dei! Stop fishing and get back now while there is still time,” he hollered. This time, he didn’t bother hiding the panic in his voice. “The wind will begin any second now, and then we’ll be paddling upwind and into a storm.” But the youngsters were in no mood to listen. The uninformed bravado of the youth mistook the old man’s panic for weakness in spirit. “Nee po perusu. Naanga varom,” one of the youngsters shouted back urging the elder to return, assuring him that they too would by and by. The sea is calm; the sun is shining and the fish are biting. What’s not to like?

“The fish will be there you fools. Return home now so you can come back another day,” he shouted. With that last warning thrown over his shoulder, and a silent prayer to the 16th century Sufi mystic Nagoorar, the old man paddled furiously. “As long as we are on land, we pray to Murugan, Pillayar. While at sea, we raise a prayer to Nagoorar and Allah to take care of us,” explained Palayam who has a shrine with a green flag atop a green flagpole in his courtyard. “Every Thursday, I cover my head and offer a Fathiya to Nagoorar,” Palayam said.

The wind was beginning to pick up in little, short, gentle gusts. The waves too were more pronounced. The andai – the movable wavebreaker sitting atop the prow of the maram – splashed through the waves as the craft surged homewards. The gopura-maasi had vanished. All across the western sky was a dark dense mass of storm clouds moving purposefully and swiftly to meet the sea. The wind was relentless. But old man felt no pain in his arms. His knees were chafed and bleeding, as he kneeled and paddled with single-minded effort.

The storm reached the sea in a curtain of wind-torn water even as a wave pushed his kattumaram gracefully onto the beach. Exhausted, the old man collapsed on the sand; the sea washed about him. Barring the young men who were all out at sea, the entire village was on the beach. The old man was sobbing inconsolably. “I warned them. But they wouldn’t listen,” he cried. There was an air of helplessness. They would have to wait for the men to return. There was no question of venturing out to sea in the midst of this storm. A blinding rain was pouring in sheets with droplets the size of small pebbles slapping everything that stood between the earth and sky. The villagers moved the old man to safety, and waited. The storm lasted less than an hour. Not one maram returned. Not one maram was found when the elders went to the kadavaadu. Sixty young women were widowed that day.

I told Palayam anna about the prediction for very heavy rains tonight in Chennai. This morning the only necessary but not sufficient conditions prevailed for rains. After the night long rains, the rains didn’t pick up. It hasn’t rained till the time of writing 5.15 p.m. In the morning, the wind was a brisk kun vadai but not a gusty one from northwest. The wind direction was right for rains, but it was not gusting. The current was a swift vanni flowing from the north. The sea was calm in the absence of any opposing wind.

Fishermen had set out to sea, but because all irrigation tanks and dams had been opened up the mid-sea vanni current was terribly swift with all that freshwater being pushed south.

I spoke to him this at around 5 p.m. to ask him about the likelihood of “very heavy rains” tonight. We had just turned an offline event we had organised this evening on Chennai floods to an online one. But he said his reading has not changed. Forget gusty winds, the wind was not even blowing from the northwest — a necessary condition for heavy rains or storms. It was a steady nedun vadai. The sea was calm. “Not the kind of indicators that I’d associate with heavy rains. All boats will go to sea tomorrow. Conditions are good. Perhaps the weather men are speaking for some other part of Chennai. It may rain, but I don’t expect heavy rains. The winds don’t foretell heavy rains. Anyway, let’s wait and see.”

PS> Please rely on IMD’s official reports for weather forecast. Do not use this to plan your evening or take safety precautions. For that go only by IMD’s official forecast. This is a citizen science initiative meant to introduce you to how fishers make sense of the seas. Like institutional weather scientists, fishers too get their readings wrong. As Palayam explains “How can I predict how nature will behave? I read the signs and try to make sense. That’s all.”

“Pooja told me yesterday that the weathermen had issued a ‘red alert’ for Chennai predicting heavy rains for today (November 17),” said Palayam. “How can I agree? The water and winds tell a different story.”

Yesterday, a kachan kodai wind was blowing steadily from the southwest and the shore current thendi (from the south). Thendi currents are an oddity during the northeast monsoon, Palayam said. Only vanni currents should flow from the north.

This morning when Palayam and I went to the estuary, we noticed that the winds had shifted towards the north, but the current, though weakened, remained thendi. The skies were clear with no hint of fog. The sea had had a makeover. It was calm with gentle swells. There was no evidence of the angry, frothing rollers of churned up slush, sewage sludge and plastic that was assailing the beach last week.  The stormy low-pressure of the week of November 7 brought heavy rains to the city. It lasted as long as the deadly kun vadai winds blew from the northwest, and ended only after the calming thennal  began gusting from the south.

Explaining his skepticism of the ‘red alert’ for today, Palayam said to me this morning: “I have told you earlier that as long as the shore current is thendi, it will break the rain clouds and kill the prospects of heavy rain along the coast. The fact that the wind has swung to the north, and the current has weakened suggests that some weather is building up. But when the current is still flowing from the south, how can I as a fisherman endorse the weather man’s ‘red alert’? This current is shifting. That is clear.” He throws a heavy piece of wood into the water. It moves very weakly, doubtfully to the north. “See! Thendi summa irukku. The thendi current is weak.”

By 1:30 pm, less than 10 hours after our conversation, clouds gathered overhead and darkened the sky. As I finished lunch, there was a short downpour that lasted less than 10 minutes, and then a steady patter of rain, like the wet nonsense rain that England gets – enough to wet the pitch and spoil the game of cricket but not heavy enough to call off the match. Palayam does not consider this downpour to be reportable as rain, leave alone as heavy rain. He has told me that before. But still, I was curious to know if he had a revised forecast.

When I called him at 1:45 pm, he had already returned from a visit to the beach, the second today, to study the conditions. “karsala mariduchu anna (The shore current has shifted, brother),” he said. The weak thendi of this morning had been replaced by a steady vanni aided by a nedun vadai breeze that was gusting from the north.

With the return of the vanni, the northeast monsoon season’s normalcy had been restored. Now, one necessary but insufficient condition for a storm was in place. “Until the wind swings to kun vadai (from northwest), we are unlikely to see heavy rains. Remember that kun vadai is the visha kaathu (deadly breeze)! With it will come rains and storms,” Palayam explained over phone.

“I know they are saying heavy rains for today. But for that to happen, the wind will have to shift from the north to north-northwest. Vadai nal-la kaathu kun vadaiya ora kaatha irukkum pothu thaan karaikku puyal varum. (During the northeast monsoon, the coast will witness storms only when there is a wicked breeze from the northwest.) That looks set to happen. At this rate, though, that may not happen till late tonight or even later. Perhaps, tomorrow we may wake up to some real rough weather. But today…?”

Early this morning, there was a brief lull in the storm. The kun vadai winds were still gusting from the northwest. Palayam refers to the kun vaadai winds as visha kaathu (poisonous – as in dangerous – breeze). Today is the day the deep depression that is threatening to drown a partially submerged Chennai makes landfall. The rains are intense, and no let up is likely for at least a day. This audio recording was made by Palayam on the banks of the Adyar, near the confluence of the river with the sea.

The Adyar is impressive today, not the stagnant cesspool of shitwater that it was barely a month ago. The surplus waters from Chembarambakkam, the spillover from the numerous tanks in the catchment and the copious run-off from the concrete jungle that is Chennai has swollen the river and forced open the river mouth. At its confluence with the sea, the river is more than half a kilometre wide – not yet as wide as it was in 2015.

In his recording, Palayam explains how he makes sense of the storm. In summary, this is what he has to say:

“The winds have to shift and blow from the south. The Thennal breeze has to blow for the kun vaadai to be controlled. The thennal is the kachan breeze that blows from the south. It is only when the thennal arrives that the kun vaadai will calm down. That is when we will know that the storm has made landfall. That is when the seas also will calm down. As long as the kun vaadai blows, the sea will be in a state of foment. It won’t calm down. It is only after the kachan breeze starts blowing from the south that the kun vadai will slow down. When the kachan arrives, the seas will heave one last time and then settle down to a normal. The breeze that you see today will not be the breeze tomorrow. It will run in from a different direction. This is what our elders have told us and this is what we know that when the kun vadai calms and the thennal arrives from the south, the seas will settle down and conditions will be right for us to push our nets.”

Look at the Windy.com images of the storm before and after it has made landfall. The storm is one big mass of air rotating in an anticlockwise circle, pushing an angry red tomato – the cloud-front north and west right over Chennai. Notice the direction of the arrows as they descend into Chennai from the north and northwest. That is the deadly kun vadai that prevails in the lead-up to and during the storm.

Now look at the after image from November 12. The storm has moved inland and the eastern half of the circle of depression is now over Chennai. Look at the direction of the arrows. The kun vadai is now replaced by the thennal – the calming breeze from the south.

The last two months have been harsh for the fishers who have returned from the seas with nothing to show for their effort. The storm may be bad for the ill-built city. But it often brings in the prospects of good fishing. Inshallah, the seas will be ready for fishing by the weekend, and the boats set out and return with nets full of fish.

This morning was magical. Yet to rise and hide behind a shroud of clouds, the Sun had burnt open a rectangular frame of light stretching up from the horizon to the edge of clouds. The sea was flat as glass. Even the waves broke gently on the beach. The tinted light on the horizon was painted in shimmering, dappled shades of orange on the water.

Large crowds of ghost crabs, and flocks of sand plover grazed within the tide’s reach. The plovers would lift off with every incoming wave, fly low some distance north and descend to the beach as the water receded to continue their hunt for “poochi” (lugworms or polychaetes). As they neared the estuary, they took off heading west, north and then east on a clockwise arc until they reached the river mouth. There they turned south and flew well beyond us skimming along the water, to descend to the beach once again to begin their hop-hunt-fly-land-hop-hunt sequence. These are birds that spend the summer in the cooler latitudes as far north as Siberia. They come to winter on Chennai’s beaches to enjoy our balmy weather.

The crabs were unmoved by the waves, their periscopic eyes sticking out of the water as they kept a pair of panoramic eyes on the landscape. Today’s congregation seemed larger than usual.

Palayam anna and I were both in our own worlds. He was a big sucker for pretty sunrises. The usual cluster of fishermen, some with rods, others with cast nets or madava valai (mullet nets) were not around today. The Tamil month of Purattasi had passed, and we were already in the fourth day of Aippasi. The midsea current had turned decidedly vanni (north-south) five days ago, on October 16. We could tell by the way the ship out at 14.5 fathoms dragged at its anchor. If the bow pointed north, the current was running from north to south. Palayam had taught me this two months ago, and now I felt like a salted mariner every time I voiced out my observations to him.

Today was my lucky day. “I remembered a story I wanted to tell you. I don’t think you have heard this before,” he began.

“This was quite some time back. I was in school. Must have been 17 or 18. It was early in the morning. My father had died a few years back. My elder brother was like father. We were on the beach. My annan (big brother) was readying a “kambi.””

Anticipating my question, he was already explaining what a kambi was. “We take 5 fathom lengths of rope, and tie coconut palm fronds at intervals of one muzham (1 muzham = 1.5 feet). We tie a float at one end, and a rock at another and drop it at chosen locations where we would fish. We take the bearings of the spot so that we can return to it whenever we wish. The kambi acts as a fish aggregator.

 The mullam is another fish-aggregating device, much larger.

“We take a full-grown poosa maram (portia tree), roots and all. If it’s canopy is too large, we chop it up, and tie it all together, take a heavy stone to weigh it down, and drop it in midsea at a location of our choice. Carrying the tree to the spot is no easy task. We would have to load it on a six person kattumaram (catamaran), and take another six-person kattumaram alongside. We would load one maram with the mullam and overturn it to drop the payload at the desired spot. Poosai is a good tree because it rots quickly. Fish are drawn to it quite rapidly, within a week.

“My brother and I had dropped two mullam at 11.5 fathoms. That morning, my brother asked me to take the kattumaram and check on our mullam. ‘Go there, to make sure no-one was fishing there,’ he said.”

Normally, the owner of the mullam gets to fish near the mullam. But this is the open sea. Nothing is really private property. We generally respect each other’s spaces, if nothing else, but to avoid a shit fight.

“How would anyone know where your mullam is?” I asked.

“Our men are wily. These things don’t remain a secret for too long. They see me coming to the same spot a few times, and they make a mental note of the bearings, and will come by to check it out on their way back. It’s just like how you make a mental note if a new restaurant comes up near the bus stand,” he explained.

“So at around 8 am, armed with only a small sombu (container) of rice congee, I set off. Even if I was only going to check out the mullam, it’s not as if I would go unprepared to fish. I packed my hooks and the panju mullu to catch vari paarai (yellowtail scad) as bait for bigger fish.”

Panju mullu is an artificial lure made of thin strips of brightly coloured, sometimes shiny cloth. “If the water is thelivu (clear blue), we’d use white strips, and if we intend to fish in the vandathanni (turbid water), we’d use coloured lures,” he explained.

When Palayam reached 11.5 fathoms, he dropped anchor and waited. The mullam was in the vicinity, but visibility was poor over land. To pinpoint the mullam’s location, he would need to be able to see the landmarks to get his bearings. None of those – Parangimalai (St. Thomas Mount) for the ner vilangu (straight bearing), Rettamalai for the themma vilangu (southern bearing) and LIC building for the vada vilangu (northern bearing) – were visible beyond the overland mist.

When the air cleared, Palayam had to paddle only a little distance to locate their mullam. He threaded vella punju mullu (shiny white lures) to six hooks, added a cycle bolt as a weight, dropped it near the mullam and bobbed it up and down to test the waters for vari paarai. Soon enough, he had five small yellowtails and one the size of a large man’s hand.

Not ready to leave good enough alone, the 17-year old decided to venture out deeper to the reef. “I had to take home something more substantial than this sad excuse for a catch,” he remarked. His brother had been clear that the young lad should return after checking the mullam – a few hours’ work at the most. But by now, Annan’s instructions were a distant murmur.

It was only noon. The land breeze was slow but still blowing. Palayam hoisted his sail and set off to Pasuva kal. Pasuva kal is a reef at 15.5 fathoms at a straight heading east of the brick red building in Kalakshetra Performing Arts College, according to Palayam.

Two other marams (catamarans) from his village were already anchored there, fishing. “No action here, machan,” said one. Palayam speared a live paarai through its cheek, and dropped the baited hook near the reef. After a long wait, he felt two gentle tugs on the line. The two older fishermen turned to watch him instinctively. A wait, and again a tug and then a fair size maavalasi (seer fish) leapt out of the water. Not once or twice. It danced with the bait in its jaws leaping out of the air four or five times. Tickled by the fish dance, and Palayam’s look of consternation, the older men were laughing out loud. “It must have sensed the hook in the bait. A maavulasi always leaps out once, and we should be careful to not yank the line when the fish is in the air. We should wait until it lands before yanking. But this one kept jumping, not giving me any time to yank. By the time I yanked, I only got the hook with the bait eaten clear till the cheek.”

The older men guffawed, and then gently comforted the dejected youth. “Don’t worry. If not now, then another time.”

That one got away. But Palayam was not just disappointed but hurt too at his poor showing in front of his elders. It was 4 pm, and the sun was sinking lower on the western horizon. The sea breeze would drop soon. The older men in the two marams packed up their things, and began rigging their sails to catch the last breeze home.

“Sarasu’s husband told me, ‘Machan! Wind up. Let’s go home. It’s getting dark and the wind won’t last long. Aadi-maasam vera, puyal eppo vena edukkalam. (It’s the month of aadi, and it can blow a storm anytime.).’ But why would I listen? Perhaps, had I been older, I would have let sense drive my decision. But at 17, my mind saw only fish. I needed to take back something more than the bait I caught.

“Nee po maama. Naa konjam nerathula varen (You go ahead, uncle. I’ll return in just a bit.),” Palayam said. “They left reminding me to return soon.

“Nearly two hours passed. No fish. At around 6 p.m., dusk was giving way to night. All of a sudden, the memeri current stilled. Until then, there was both a memeri and a thendi from the south which is the norm when the southwest monsoon is in force. But after the memeri stilled, it was just the thendi.”

(Note: Memeri is an ocean phenomenon when the sea draws in, causing a palpable but invisible movement of water from land to sea.)

Almost instantaneously, Palayam felt a series of strong tugs and the line wound around his thigh stretched taut. Excitedly, he drew the line and landed a thol paarai (Queen Fish) that was at least three feet long. “About this big,” he said to me, holding his palm face down at navel level as he stood. It was dark, and he couldn’t see. But he had kept the bait fish inside the pari (a woven basket made of palm fronds) and lashed it to the maram. He fixed a new hook and changed the line. “The paarai have sharp teeth, and the line may have been weathered a bit because of the bite,” he said.

He drew out another vari paarai for bait, speared it and dropped it into the sea. Another large thol paarai catch. In no time, he exhausted all his bait with a large Queen Fish to show for each. His maram was loaded with five large fish.

It was late, pitch dark and there was no wind. Palayam had to paddle all the way back. “But all the fish I had caught lifted my spirits and strengthened my shoulders. I paddled back with no sense of fatigue. It was midnight by the time I reached home. My brother was standing on the beach, very concerned. ‘Did I not tell you to return immediately? What took you so long,’ he asked. And then he saw the laden boat. He laughed out loud, and began unloading the catch. ‘Paravayilla. Chinna paiyyan, ondi marathula poi saadhichitta paa (Not bad. Young you may be, but you single-handedly brought the maram back with fish.),’ he said, patting me.

“The very next morning, we set off to the same spot. But we got nothing. I think it had something to do with the way in which the current turned from being a dual (memeri + thendi) to a single thendi current. My line was lying just above the reef. These fish must have been grazing in the vicinity; with the sudden shift in current, they would have decided to return.

“The reef is the thai veedu (mother’s home) for the fish. No matter where they go, they have to return here at night.

Science is a way of knowing. This is an attempt by Nityanand Jayaraman, together with The Wire Science, to learn, explore and communicate a different way of knowing. Mainstream education has valourised only one form of knowing – namely, the ways of institutional western science that have dominated knowledge discourses since the industrial revolution. Traditional sciences, if at all considered, are viewed patronisingly.

‘Science of the Seas’ is a deep dive into the knowledge systems of the seas as seen from the perspective of artisanal fishers. Marine biologists may be experts on the living beings of the sea; ocean hydrographers may be adept at mapping ocean currents and upwellings; meteorologists study atmospheric phenomena to make sense of the weather.

Not one of these experts needs to be able to venture out to sea, know enough of fish, their habits and habitat, read the weather and ocean conditions with sufficient accuracy to decide on whether a fishing trip would be worth it in terms of physical and financial risk, and return home with fish in their boats and life and limb intact. Artisanal fishers do this every day. For this, they use not just science but also a fair measure of faith and spirituality.

The manner in which fishers make sense of the seas, or the hill tribes of their home grounds, is a hand-me-down science refined over years of intimate observation of natural phenomena and the behaviour of native life-forms. Agencies as lofty as the United Nations-supported Intergovernmental Science Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services have emphasised in no uncertain terms that humanity’s emergence from the natural crises that is imminent is not possible without inspiration from the traditional systems of knowledge.

The everyday science of artisanal fishers is democratic, freely available and has its own pedagogy of embedded apprenticeship. The essays in this series are by and large snippets from conversations between Nityanand Jayaraman, a writer, social activist and citizen science enthusiast, and S. Palayam, a.k.a. Palayam anna. ‘Anna’ is a casual but respectful endearment meaning ‘elder brother’ in Tamil. Palayam anna is an experienced marathukaarar (hook-and-line fisher) from the south Chennai fishing village of Urur Kuppam.

Unlike the exalted institutional sciences that produce predominantly elite and upper-caste experts, and whose expertise are accessible only to the powerful, Palayam’s expertise is subaltern, and an essential qualification for any fisher that ventures out to sea and returns home safely – with or without fish.

The stories are presented in reverse chronological order, to be read from top to bottom. Each story, or update if you prefer, is open-ended, eschewing the beginning-middle-end structure in favour of beginning and ending in media res, like a vignette from a larger, evolving picture.

Updates will be neither regular nor periodic, and won’t necessarily follow a chronological order – both in terms of Palayam anna’s experiences and of the seasons that his conservations with Nityanand will deal with. Instead, they will be composed more like notes from a conversation with a friend.

The ‘Science of the Seas’ page hopes to chronicle a different way of engaging with the natural universe, communicated in the language of the fishers, even as Nityanand takes a closer look at his own role as a middle-man between this knowledge and the readers of The Wire Science.

For comments and feedback, please write to mukunth@science.thewire.in.

A happy sight awaited us as we returned from our morning walk. To the sound of the ocean and their own light-hearted banter, five fishermen dripping salt water from their sea-wet clothes were working their net on the beach. Two were on the sand each holding a side of the net, and three were inside the boat feeding out the net. The owner of the boat waved out a cheery greeting to us. The cause of their lifted spirits was in plain sight – spread out on the beach sand and flying in the air like tiny slivers of silver as the men shook the net to untangle the anchovy (maappu nethili).

Only one lucky boat from Urur Kuppam had ventured out today. It is Ayudha Puja, a religious holiday, when sales are dull as most Tamil hindus avoid meat and fish. In neighbouring Odai Kuppam, many more boats had set out with nethili valai – specialised anchovy nets. Each boat returned laden with delicate fish the size of a little finger. There’s more fish than there are buyers. So prices will be depressed. What can’t be sold will be sun-dried to be sold in packets of 10 to 15 dried fish.

Anchovies move in shoals. Till yesterday, the thendi (south-north) current was only bringing a nuisance. Avalai, a formless, translucent variety of giant jelly fish, was getting caught in the delicate nets. With each individual weighing upwards of 8 kg, snagging 20 or 30 avalai can destroy the net. Rather than risk that loss, most fishers that set out yesterday did not dare to drop their nets.

Since last evening, conditions have improve: “avalai apdiye thendi vellathula vadakathu pakkam kasimedu side poyirukkum. Ippo avangalukku thollai paavam. “The jelly fish have probably drifted north towards Kasimedu with the thendi current. The poor folks there would have to deal with this nuisance,” Palayam explained.

The sole boat that had returned with about Rs. 12,000 worth of nethili fish set out at around 1 a.m. in the dark of the just-born day, Palayam offered. “Aren’t you curious how they went out at night, knew where to cast the net and bring back the fish?” he asked.

“Moonlight?” I returned, hesitantly.

Palayam laughed out loud. “It’s eight days since amavasai (new moon). Calculate and tell me if the moon would have been up when they went out.” I had no idea what the new moon had to do with moonlight eight nights later. I felt no shame in telling him that.

“Amavasaikku nila 6 manikku paduthiruchu. Ovvoru piraiyum 45 nimisham thalli padukkum. Appo ettan valar piraikku kanakku podunga. Nalliravulaiye nila marainjidum. Avanga valai kattum-bothu iruttaa thaan irundhirukkum. (On New Moon’s day, the  moonset was at 6 p.m. Then it is delayed by 45 minutes every day. So calculate the moonset for the 8th phase of a waxing moon. The moon would have disappeared around midnight. It would have been pitch dark when they were setting their net,” he explained.

The man is a walking almanac. And I’m an engineering graduate that knows how to use Google. I checked for moonrise/moonset data for Chennai. Palayam’s instantaneous response was right on.  See for yourself.

Palayam repeated his question: “How do you think they spotted these tiny fish in the dark?” My knowledge of anchovy is restricted to eating and making nethili varuval (anchovy fry) and anchovy parmesan pasta. He wasn’t waiting for an answer. He had enough sense to know that I was clueless.

He proceeded to explain. “These anchovy shoals are late in coming. Usually, come Purattasi (mid- September to mid-October), the waters turn crystal clear – a deep blue – right up to near the shoreline. This is aided by a phenomenon called the Olni – when the clear waters of the deep surge relentlessly landwards pushing the line separating the blue waters from the turbid, muddy brown or grey waters closer to shore. The reverse phenomenon, when the sea sucks in and draws itself towards the deep is called a Memeri. When the nearshore or longshore current is thendi (south-north), it is usually the olni that rules. I had written about this in an earlier post.

When the water is crystal clear like it is in the Tamil month of Purattasi, the fish don’t venture out in the day to avoid predators. Fishers avoid day-time fishing because the fish are few and their nets are visible. After nightfall, they move about with less fear. That’s why fishing during Purattasi is mostly after dusk and before dawn. When the fishermen set out at night, they have to make it beyond the vandal thanni (turbid waters) near the coast. The anchovy don’t like the vandal. They prefer the thelivu (clear waters). In the dark of the night, the fishers tell turbid waters from the blue waters by looking out for kamaru (bioluminescence). Kamaru is found in nutrient-rich turbid waters. Once they get past the kamaru, they know they are in clear water. Here, they will cast and haul out an experimental net in different spots as they go deeper into the expanse of clear water. Wherever the experimental net comes out with plenty of fish in it would be the spot for casting the actual fishing net.”

The experimental nets are shorter versions of the actual net. Where the actual fishing would be done by two separate nets each stretched between 25 floats/buoys, the experimental net would be a short section with just 5 or 6 buoys. The smaller nets allow for quicker deployment and re-haul so that the waters can be sampled for fish without spending more than 15 minutes in each location.

In August 2019, Chennai’s beaches were bathed in fairy blue lights of bioluminescence. At that time, I had asked Palayam for his explanation of the phenomenon. He told me that kamaru – the fisher word for bioluminescence – was a common sight in the night sea, and that fishers used the light for fishing. Now I know what he meant.